Journey to the Greenlands: Over and Under
by Straiya
Summary: It's been two years since the herd's last endeavour. Peaches is growing fast, Sid and Diego are learning the ins and outs of godparenthood while Crash and Eddie are just busy being themselves, but just as the old adage goes what goes up must come down.
1. A Wild Ride

**So yeah this is that revised re-write I said I was writing for Journey to The Greenlands all those years ago. Obviously it has undergone some serious changes, like the entire bloody plot for instance.**

**Yes this story is written from an OC's point of view but I tell you it is a hell of a lot easier to keep the canon characters actually in character from an outside viewpoint. Character derailment is just too easy when writing a long fic from a canon POV as the previous version of this story very clearly demonstrates. However if you bear the mind to read on to chapter 2, or skip to it if you are so inclined, you will very quickly discover that I still put our beloved band of sub zero heroes front and centre from here onward for the entirety of this story. Writing an Ice Age fic without the Ice Age cast is like baking a chocolate pie without the delicious gooey chocolate, not much fun to make and even less fun to... read? Eat? Okay so the analogy kind of stinks but you get the idea. **

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Chapter1

A Wild Ride

Opening her eyes to the deep orange glow that flooded in through the leaves Sarah gave a lengthy yawn as she stretched her arms above her head in welcome to the new dusk and the long quiet night that was sure to follow. She couldn't help but smile contentedly. What better way to top off a full days rest than waking up to a pleasant sunset like this? No distant animals cries, no overly inquisitive arboreal rodents or hungry predators probing through the leaves; just herself and the large golden disk falling behind the distant hills.

Below her stretched a large white expanse of rolling ice fields, which reached from the base of the small hill on which her tree was situated and out toward the edge of the distant jungle of skeletal trees that itself extended toward the base of the Southern range of snow coated mountains. Spattered across the landscape were a few sparse patches of trees and bushes concentrated mostly around the small creak that ran through the fields. On most days the creek's surface would be frozen solid but it sometimes thawed out enough during Spring and Summer to flow somewhat sluggishly west toward the mountainous horizon and fortunately this happened to be one of those times.

With a small sigh, Sarah reached upward and, using her tiny claws to cling onto the smooth surface of the branch, she began to make her way toward the tree trunk just a few feet away. Stopping as she reached the trunk, Sarah stared down the length of the tree. It rose at a steep angle from the dense leaf litter below, which formed the perfect surface for her to slide down and forego the tiring and pointless exercise of having to climb. She leapt from the branch and onto the trunk, clinging onto its smooth, grey, bark for a few seconds before letting go and sliding down head-first on her belly. Flying off a small hump in the surface where the tree dropped vertically into the ground, she pulled herself into a ball, somersaulting several times in the air before spreading herself again as she fell; landing on her back with a muffled thud in the thick snow that coated the ground.

She whistled loudly as she sat up.

"Try hard!" a voice called.

Surprised, Sarah turned to see a small family of horned beavers who had apparently stopped to view her antics. Whilst the adults seemed somewhat impressed by her stunt, the younger kid was standing, arms folded with a disapproving scowl on his face.

"And you are?" she asked in reply.

The boy opened his mouth to answer but before he could the mother to wrapped an arm around the him and began to guide him away with the father giving Sarah a brief nod of approval.

"Thanks," Sarah replied quietly, before the beaver turned and hurried after the rest of the family as they headed away up the hill.

Getting to her feet, Sarah quickly began to brush the leaves and snow flakes from her fur. Normally she liked to think of herself as a calm, level headed possum with a slight sporty bend owing to her predominantly male family but waking up to the first genuinely cloud free evening in almost a month put her in such high spirits that she felt she just had to do something special to commemorate the occasion.

Suddenly a twig snapped nearby and Sarah froze, listening intently for any nearby movement. She sniffed the air for any unusual scent that might indicate a predator but it was no good, the sound had come from somewhere downwind. Another crunch emanated from roughly the same spot, and she spun to face it. Although nothing was immediately obvious, Sarah quickly noticed a big bushy tail rising out from behind a nearby snowdrift.

Immediately recognising its puffy, yellow-gray striped appearance Sarah quietly lowered herself onto all fours and remained as still as possible. A wide, cheeky grin creeping across her features as the tail continued closer and the creature to which it was attached began to emerge over the top of the snowdrift starting with a pair of prominent batty ears. Most of its stomach and chest up to its chin was covered by creamy-yellow fur with the rest of his body covered in a rather mangy coat of grey-black, and as it reached the top of the snowdrift a good view of the animals lower half confirmed that it was indeed male.

"Brown fur on white snow Sarah?" the creature suddenly asked with smile as his light brown eyes met Sarah's. "Gotta admit I expected better from ya' girl."

It was Michael, a well natured, roughly middle-aged glider who although a little timid at times seemed to possess a perpetually sunny disposition. Although he'd been living on the opposite side of the hill for several years before Sarah had moved here, it was very obvious to her that his kind wasn't native to this region given his curious accent. This manifested in a strong emphasis on the vowel sounds with an upward inflection at the end of every sentence which rather frustratingly made just about everything he said sound like a question to anyone who wasn't used to it. Also he apparently preferred to be called by the rather childish sounding moniker of Mikey.

Sarah laughed as she jumped up and walked over to meet him, "Gimme a break I only just got out of the tree."

"So ya' did," he remarked. "Why ya' tryin' to hide from old Mikey then? 'fraid I'd try to seduce ya' or somethin' 'cause I can assure ya' my intentions are pure as snow."

"Hah, maybe if it got tread on a few times, after a skunk sprayed on it and it was left out in the sun to mature for a while."

"Say no more, love," Mikey replied with a chuckle, "It's that time of the season again. I know, I can feel it in my, uuhh, tail."

Sarah giggled, she knew exactly what he really meant, and it certainly wasn't his tail.

"Hah, unless you're planning on trying out some sort of freaky interspecies thing, what are your chances of getting any honestly?" she exclaimed, however, despite her exact words she actually thought it sort of odd that he was the only glider around here, with the obvious exception of the flying squirrels occupying the northern ridge.

"I'd say they're far better than yours, considerin' this anti-bloke thing you got going," Mikey retorted.

"So what if I don't want to do that just yet?"

"Heh. Well in your case that's probably a wise choice. Now I don't know you're species that well but from what I've heard, possums of the male variety have no sense of paternal responsibility."

"My thought's exactly."

"Ah, possums," Mikey continued his voice fading slightly before turning his face back to Sarah with a grin of ever-present enthusiasm, "How'd you sleep today, boy when I woke up this evening; I tell you now, I don't think I've ever needed to pee so badly in my entire life."

"And you're telling me this, why?" Sarah asked as she turned and started toward the top of the hill.

"I'm just in a sharing mood today. Too much water 'fore bed I think." Mikey replied, as he walked along beside Sarah. "That was some sunset eh?"

"What, that one?" Sarah asked as pointed toward the hills behind which the final yellow gleams of sunlight were disappearing, "Or one of the other million before it."

"Well it's certainly a nice change from all that cloud and snow we've been gettin' lately."

"I guess."

Sarah glanced sideways towards Mikey. He was certainly cheerful today, maybe he'd found a bunch of overripe fruit and gotten a little tipsy because if he had it wouldn't be the first time.

"So you had any close encounters of the male variety lately?" he asked.

"Can we please talk about something that doesn't relate to mating in any way," Sarah pleaded.

It was still early evening with some pink-orange sunlight still hanging around in the sky, and already she had had well and truly enough of that particular subject for tonight. There was still the entire season to get through yet and if things continued this way every night a wild killing spree was all but inevitable.

"Well," Mikey began, with a quick glance toward his stomach, "The ol' tum and I have been havin' a little talk about the proposition of breakfast, and we wanted to know what you think. I feel like fruit myself."

"What kind?" Sarah asked.

"Just a second," Mikey answered, leaning down and pretending to listen intently to his own belly. "Uh huh, just as I thought, fresh and filling."

Sarah couldn't help but giggle. "How about the trees down by waterfall?I think the peach ones are ripe by now."

"A juicy idea indeed, lead on!"

"Yeah, how about you do the leading tonight," she replied, "I'm still a little dizzy from that back-flip a moment ago."

This was of course a blatant lie, and from Mikey's slightly raised eyebrow Sarah could tell he wasn't buying it, but true to his ridiculously none threatening personality the glider maintained his friendly composure and simply responded with an understanding smile.

"No problem love, you just follow old Mikey then. I know a few shortcuts anyway."

He dropped to all fours and started off walking horizontally along the frosty hillside towards the northern face, and Sarah followed, preferring to maintain her upright posture as she walked quietly behind him. As usual with the coming of springtime just about everything was blooming some kind of flower or another. Most animals cherished this time of warmth and flourishing plant life and as such chose to celebrate in the traditional manner of adding another litter to the den, but for Sarah it signalled the beginning of a great personal challenge.

This year in following some rather interesting advice from her eldest, and only remaining brother she had decided to take it upon herself to go an entire season without making any kind of whoopee with anyone. The reason being that it was supposed to make the off-season positively mind blowing, but to put things in perspective she had never achieved so much as three days let alone four months so it was also fair personal challenge of fortitude and she was all for the bragging rights come the annual family reunion or as she liked to call it the 'whose not dead yet' headcount. She had a strange family.

Suddenly Mikey froze, his tail dropped low to the ground and he immediately began to gaze around at the surrounding icy foliage while anxiously sniffing the air.

"What is it?" Sarah whispered, and she too stopped and began to sniff the air, eager to detect whatever scent Mikey had picked up. It didn't take long for the smell of blood and fur to hit her nostrils.

Normally she'd assume that something had died or at least been killed somewhere nearby but there was something different this time, something was missing. She sniffed again to see if she'd just missed it but usual scent of decaying flesh was weak, far too weak, and the scent of blood and fur was far too strong. There was something else there too, an unfamiliar mammalian odour that she just couldn't identify no matter how hard she tried. There was however still one thing she was sure of and that this smell was no vulture, it had the stench of a land predator all over it and it was definitely somewhere close by.

Suddenly, somewhere to her left in the uphill direction, she heard a deep menacing growl. With a soft crunch she hit the ground, eyes closed and completely limp, a natural survival reaction common to her species that she possessed no conscious control over. Indeed to any other animal she would have appeared dead and that was the idea, to appear as the most unattractive prey item possible.

Unfortunately this left her perfectly awake and conscious of her surroundings through her senses of smell and hearing, and usually in some of the most uncomfortable positions possible. Now was no different, and being basically paralyzed there was nothing she could do to correct her body, or pull her tongue away from the freezing ground to which it was now almost certainly stuck.

"Hey you, back off!' she heard Mikey call, "This is mine."

"What?" a deep and unfamiliar voice asked.

Whatever it was, it was certainly surprised by Mikey's presence. Of course this did little to distract from the fact that the creature definitely sounded much bigger than Sarah and inarguably meaner.

"I said this possum's mine, I saw it first," Mikey replied, without a single trace of fear or anxiety.

At that moment Sarah couldn't have felt any more thankful for Mikey's quick thinking, even if it wasn't particularly bright.

"What, that thing?" the voice asked, it definitely sounded closer now.

"'Course, what else?" Mikey responded.

"Err, nothing. Did you say it was a possum?"

The voice was now terrifyingly close now and Sarah could distinctly hear the loud, crunching footsteps of something very large approaching and the stench of blood and fur had grown almost overwhelming.

"Yeah and it's my breakfast." Mikey continued.

"Breakfast?" the creature exclaimed, "But it's night"

"What's it to you?"

"Not much. Just make sure it's really dead, I've been around those things and I gotta tell ya; they fake it pretty good."

"Oh it's dead alright, I checked," Mikey responded confidently.

"Well I think you need to check again, cos' that one aint as dead as you think."

Now the footsteps had silenced and the voice sounded as if it were right next to her; and it sounded strangely amused. "Look, see it breathing?"

"Eh? Whatdya' know it is," Mikey replied, feigning surprise, "I'm still gonna eat it."

"No you're not," the voice snarled.

"Hey I said it was mine!" Mikey shouted indignantly.

"I don't want it."

"Then what _do_ you want?"

"Nothing, just passing through" the voice answered, "Heh, enjoy your possum."

Suddenly Sarah could hear the sound of heavy crunching footsteps moving quickly away from her and in seconds they had disappeared amongst the loud chirping of crickets in the fields below and Mikey finally spoke up again.

"It's okay Sarah, he's gone now."

Slowly Sarah opened her eyes and gazed around at the surrounding hillside. As far as she could tell, nothing much had changed. The sky was still dark blue deepening to navy filled with shimmering starlight, and Mikey was standing next to her facing away and down the hill toward the snowfields.

There was no sign of the predator and its scent had once again become little more than an innocuous odour on the wind.

"Where'd he go?" Sarah asked, still a little too nervous to get to her feet just yet.

"The field I guess," Mikey answered, and he gave an impressed whistle, "He always hunts down there. Little strange that he's hunting at night though." He turned back to Sarah with a thoughtful, almost nostalgic calm spread across his features, "C'mon let's go. No need to worry about him, them tigers only take the big stuff."

"What, morsels like us just a snack then?" Sarah asked as she proceeded to brush snow from her previously pristine coat.

"Nah, not worth the trouble," Mikey replied as a happy grin once again returned to his face, "Good chat though mind you. Shall we?"

Sarah just gave him a questioning gaze as the pair once again set off along the hillside with Mikey in the lead on all fours with his tail held high, and Sarah following close behind trying her hardest to fight the sudden overwhelming urge to literally kick him in the butt.

By the time Sarah and Mikey had reached the waterfall the sun had long since disappeared behind the hills and night was well and truly upon the land leaving only the moon and the stars to shine down, their weak luminescence colouring the rolling hills and fields the most beautiful hues of blue and grey. High-time for the crickets was certainly in full force as the sounds of their chirps rose up from the plains and mixed with the other various nocturnal calls to create the evening cacophony which filled the air around the two hungry mammals, who were currently perched in the fork of a peach tree, tucking into their evening breakfast. True portraits of fruity gluttony

Sarah couldn't help humming happily as she jammed yet another fresh, juicy peach into her mouth and experienced the ensuing torrent of sweet, peachy goodness. From the branch just across from her, Mikey signaled his enjoyment of the meal in the usual male tradition of a loud belch, a might bit crass admittedly but neither of them were known for good table manners. In all honesty Sarah was probably messiest out of the two considering the copious amount for sticky peach juice and small pieces of fruit stuck all over her face. Her mother had always told her to grow up and act more lady like but that pretty much went right out the window when Sarah left to live on her own, not that she'd ever really listened anyway.

Just across from them, amongst the shrubs and bushes on the opposite bank of the small brook the peach trees bordered, Mikey had pointed out the silhouettes of a small group of animals sleeping together in a clearing. Although the actual number and type of animals present was hidden by the surrounding shrubbery, the smells wafting across on the cool night breeze carried quite a variety of unique but rather unfamiliar animal scents. Amongst them Sarah certainly recognized the musk of blood and fur from the event earlier this evening and it didn't take a genius to know what that indicated. Not that it worried her though, as Mikey said, it wouldn't be interested in such small morsels like them.

"Hey Sarah, do you hear that?" Mikey asked, after swallowing a fresh mouthful of peach.

Sarah listened intently for a few seconds, and sure enough there it was, a most peculiar sound emanating from across the brook. Although she couldn't be quite sure from this distance, it sounded a heck of a lot like someone moaning, probably in their sleep.

"Someone's have'n a real' nice dream by the sound of it," Mikey remarked with a snide grin.

"Or a real bad one," Sarah corrected.

Mikey shrugged and took another bite out of his peach, "_Waffeva oatfs yeh boat_."

"Aww, that's it I'm stuffed," Sarah announced finally laying back against the branch.

Mikey didn't reply but she could hear him taking another squelchy bite out of his peach. Geez, with the mountainous volumes he tended to take in at every sitting he really should have looked more like a gelatinous blob of fat and fur rather than a glider with a prominent belly-bulge.

"What do you think we should do next then?" Sarah asked once Mikey had swallowed his mouthful.

"Dunno'," Mikey answered, "Your night love, pick something."

"Hmmm," Sarah gazed up into the above branches as she mused over the possibilities for this evening.

She really didn't feel like a race down the hill, mostly because the only clear path was on the far side and she didn't like trekking that far on a full stomach. Plus the brook was by far one of her favourite places, even if the 'waterfall' that fed it was only really a trickling stream downhill that dripped and sputtered, but she liked it better that way. Admittedly the snoring echoing across from the opposite shore was a little annoying though. Come to think of it, she and Mikey might as well check out the newcomers while they were here, after all she'd never seen a saber before and it wasn't like she'd had a good look herself earlier.

"Wanna check out the tiger?" Sarah suggested.

Mikey gave her a strange look, "No need. I know him. Not on first name terms mind you, but we've had our little encounters."

"Well, it's not just a tiger. You smell the other things? We could find out what they are."

Mikey just chuckled and stood up on his branch as began to stretch, "Two mammoths and a sloth, oh and a couple of possums; 'bout your age actually."

"How the heck could you know that?" asked Sarah.

"What, just one of the local herds." Mikey answered casually, "Quite a weird bunch really, and boy have they got some stories. I mean I take it all with a big ol' pinch a salt mind you, but it's damn good fun if you got the time and like a good long chit-chat."

"You know those animals?" Sarah asked, indicating the opposite side of the brook.

"I've been here damn near twenty long ones love. I know lots of herds around here," Mikey replied, suddenly spreading his arms and legs, and consequently stretching his gliding flaps to full width, "Would you like to see 'em then? It's about time you got to know ya' neighbours."

Sarah couldn't help but feel a little puzzled by this suggestion. Not that she was particularly averse to meeting new people, but given the current time of night most animals would be asleep including those species that Mikey had just mentioned, except the possums of course.

"Ahh, Mikey are you sure…" Sarah began, "I mean, won't they be asleep?"

"No problem, love. We'll just pop around for a quick looksy, no need to wake anybody," Mikey said back to her as he approached the edge of the branch and prepared to leap off, "I'll go first shall I?" And with that he leapt from the branch, falling a few feet before his gliding flaps managed to catch the air instantly ceasing his earthward plummet and carry him gracefully over to the opposite bank where he dived in amongst the branches with a soft rustling and grabbed hold of a tree trunk.

'_Easy enough for you_,_'_Sarah thought irritably as she gazed down toward the ground beneath her branch and started toward the tree trunk.

All Mikey had to do was glide across; she had to cross the brook by jumping across a couple of stepping stones further downstream. Not that it took her long to reach them and jump across them on all fours with relative ease, but it still took her a while to get back to the bank opposite the peach trees mostly because of her reluctance to actually meet this herd. For one thing, why in the hell would she ever want to come anywhere near a tiger let alone spy on it, and although Mikey had already informed her of their presence, the air was rank with male pheromones, and that smell harboured no appeal to her whatsoever.

"Oi, up here Sarah," she heard Mikey call down from one of the nearby trees.

Looking up into the sparse canopy above her it wasn't hard for Sarah to spot the glider standing in the fork a few trees away from her, gesturing for her to join him in the tree. Not willing to risk vocalizing a response this close to a tiger, Sarah just nodded and dropped to all fours as she scampered as quietly and as quickly as she could over to Mikey's tree.

"Geez, does the word stealth mean anything to you?" Sarah whispered as she clambered onto Mikey 's branch.

"Huh, not with this bunch, you'd have better luck wakin' the dead," Mikey replied quietly, "The tiger's the only one with ears. The rest are just for show if you ask me."

Sarah looked from Mikey down into the clearing a few feet away from their tree, and sure enough there they were, exactly as Mikey had described; two enormous, shaggy mounds of red-orange fur which she assumed to be the mammoths, a light green pelted sloth lying in an extremely awkward and uncomfortable position against a half-rotten log, and an orange furred saber sleeping apart from the others on the edge of the clearing. Given the distance she had to assume that either the saber wasn't exactly good chums with the others or he was an extremely lousy sentry.

Strangely though, even though their smell was pretty damn strong around here, no matter how hard she looked she couldn't see any sign of the possums Mikey had mentioned, and naturally this made Sarah extremely nervous.

"Hey, Mikey, where are the other possums?" Sarah whispered.

"Hmm? I dunno, they usually hang around the big girl one over there," Mikey pointed out one of the mammoths whose coat was a much lighter hue of orange.

Sarah looked more closely around the mammoth he indicated, and after a brief search she noticed two tiny beige lumps on the ground right next to it.

"Are those them?" she asked, indicating the two lumps.

"Heh, waddaya know," Mikey commented with a chuckle.

"What is it? Is it them?"

"Eh? Nah, look at that," Mikey pointed toward the mammoths again, only this time it was another much smaller mound of similarly coloured fur upon which his index claw fell, "Aww, would ya' look at that. Congrats Manny, ya' finally gotcha-self a kid."

"Manny?"

"Manny and Ellie, they're the mammoths."

"Wait I thought you said you didn't know the names?" Sarah pointed incredulously.

"Not the tiger or the possums no, but I know the sloth and the mammoths. Just about everyone here knows 'em. Sid, Manny and Ellie they're called. Last I heard Ellie was preggers with a lil' mammoth, I didn't know they'd actually had the baby yet."

"So what, you wanna wait 'til morning to congratulate them or something?" Sarah asked, "I don't know about you but… whoa what was that?"

Sarah looked down toward the ground as the tree branch began to vibrate awkwardly. Oddly enough it didn't look like anything was brushing against the tree, if anything the way the leaf litter was starting to move about made it look like the ground itself was vibrating. Despite this Mikey seemed pretty unconcerned.

"No worries Sarah, it's just a little earthquake," he replied calmly.

"What!" Sarah exclaimed, regrettably at full volume, and out of the corner of her eye she could see the tiger stirring.

"Calm down love, no need to get yourself all worked up it's just a little'un, happens all the time. They-" Mikey paused as his ears perked up and he began to glance around nervously, "You know what, scratch that. Grab onto something."

"What now?" Sarah asked.

"Well, ya' hear that?"

Heeding Mikey's suggestion Sarah quieted down and listened intently to the night air. At first she couldn't tell what he was talking about but after a second or two she noticed a distinct rumbling in the distance coming from the direction of the mountains and it sounded like it was coming closer, and it was coming fast.

"A stampede?" Sarah asked, but Mikey just shook his head and chuckled.

"Ha, you wish babe," he replied, grabbing a firm hold of the branch, "You best get ready for a wild ride."

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**I'm sorry that the canon characters recieved little more than a cameo in this chapter but trust me it's all about them from here on out.  
Also as an admittedly flimsy pre-emptive defence against copy-cat accusations, Mikey's accent is Australian not British. **


	2. A Reciprocal Gesture

**Yes, Chapter 2 is finally finished. Took me long enough, I know, but school's been kicking my arse lately and with final assessments just weeks away I'm finding myself with less and less time to write so I guess this'll have to do for now, good thing I made it a nice long one.**

**Once again props go to my brother for the proofreading, which I'm far too lazy to do myself.**

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Chapter 2

A Reciprocal Gesture

Sarah groaned loudly as the embrace of comfortable numbness was suddenly replaced by the most intense headache she had ever suffered. As if that wasn't enough she had absolutely no idea where she was, how she got there or even what the hell must have happened for her to be in this state.

"Morning sleepyhead!" a voice called from somewhere very close by.

Sarah's eyes snapped open. That was no voice she recognized. Unfortunately the fuzzy brown blob that met her eyes did little to help her recognize just who the heck was addressing her.

"You feeling alright?" the blob asked in a voice that was almost certainly male.

Great, amnesia, a throbbing headache and waking up with some random guy she could swear she'd never met before; it was her sweet sixteenth all over again.

"Is there anything we can get you sweetie?" a different and distinctly feminine voiced asked.

Sarah attempted to answer but wound up managing little more than a groan.

"What?"

"Oomemie?" Sarah asked, sort of.

"Sorry, I didn't get that?" the female voice asked.

"What's she saying?" a different voice asked.

"Hell if I know."

"You think she speaks English?"

"I dunno bro, sounds like French or something."

"Sweet, foreign chick!"

"I've heard hitting your head can make you speak funny languages, maybe she hit her head when she fell?" a new voice asked. This one was male too, but with a very prominent lisp.

Jeez! Three guys and a girl, none of whom she recognized. What the hell was she eating last night? Sarah reached up and rubbed her eyes before sitting up and beginning to look around at her surroundings and from what she could tell, she was sitting on the edge of a large, snowy clearing surrounded on all sides by a group of strangers.

"How are ya' Sarah?" a familiar voice asked from just behind her.

"Mikey?" Sarah asked tentatively.

"The one and only," the glider replied jovially as he walked into view from behind her and kneeled down to her eye level, "How you feelin' love?"

"I've been better," Sarah answered weakly.

"I gotta tell ya', that was some fall you had there," said Mikey, "Ya' really know how to give a guy a scare, you know that?"

Sarah sat in silence for a moment as she wracked her aching brains for any possible recollection of the group of mammals that stood before her. They certainly rang some bells, but she couldn't quite tell exactly which bells they were ringing. There was nothing particularly remarkable about them; just a couple of mammoths, one red-brown, one orange, a yellow-green pelted sloth and two garden variety possums. Then she noticed something, a small shaggy mound of orange fur weaving around between the mammoths' legs, and just like that it hit her.

It was the herd Mikey had been talking about last night. A bit weird but had some good stories if she recalled correctly.

"Well, erm, I'm Ellie," the female mammoth finally spoke up in an obvious effort to break the awkward silence that had fallen over the group. "These are my brothers, Crash and Eddie."

The other two possums nodded one after the other, blue eyed first, brown eyed second.

"You can call me Sid," said the sloth.

Sarah looked expectantly towards the male mammoth but rather surprisingly he just continued to scowl silently in obvious disinterest. Normally she would have considered this kind of non-response to be quite rude but with a headache like this she was willing to make an exception in exchange for the welcome silence however momentary it was.

"Call him Manny, that's what we do," Eddie said, walking up to her with an outstretched paw.

"Err thanks," Sarah replied as she took his paw and he rather unceremoniously pulled her to her feet.

As she continued to mentally piece together the events of the previous night, Sarah suddenly felt a most peculiar weight on her right shoulder and as she turned to investigate she was treated to a face-full of mammoth trunk, which swiftly fell away to reveal an innocently smiling little mammoth girl. Little of course being relative in this case, considering the fact that the baby mammoth was actually about twice Sarah's size.

"Heh, looks like ya' made yourself a new friend there love," Mikey pointed out with a chuckle.

"Uh, hi there," Sarah began awkwardly, "What's your name?"

"It's Peaches," Manny grumbled before turning and quietly speaking to Ellie who immediately shot him a dangerous glare.

Sarah pretended not have noticed.

"Peaches?" she exclaimed in half-sincere curiosity.

"Long story," Manny replied, as the little mammoth ran back over to her mother.

"You should ask 'em sometime, I hear it's a real cracker," Mikey whispered into Sarah's ear.

"Yeah I'm not so sure about that just now," she replied, still bleary eyed with a headache that could've floored a rhino, Sarah was hardly in a listening mood.

"You don't remember the Earthquake?" asked Mikey.

"Like I could forget something like that!" Sarah exclaimed.

"That tree you were in got totaled big time!" One of the two other possums announced, pointing toward what was once a decently sized birch tree but was now merely a tangle of broken branches and snow.

"Manny had to move the tree to get to you. We didn't even know you were there until that glider started freaking out," said Sid, "And when we found you, you were all covered with leaves and stuff, you weren't moving at all and when you woke up just now you were speaking French."

"Well my mom always said I should learn a second language," Sarah quipped with a weak grin, "Didn't say anything about being crushed under trees though."

"But you're feeling alright now though?" Ellie asked.

"Considering the circumstances I guess so," Sarah answered.

"Great see the possum's fine, can we go now?" Manny growled.

"You can go if you want," Ellie replied, "We'll catch up."

Manny began to grumble incoherently as he turned and hurried away.

"Well someone's in a hurry," said Mikey.

Ellie laughed, "Don't worry about it, he's just nervous about the playground. Boy, I sure don't want be around when he gets there, I can tell you that."

"Why?" Sarah asked.

"O-O-P-S," Sid responded simply.

"Oops?"

"Obsessive Overprotective Parent Syndrome," Ellie explained, "We know it's just coz he cares but we all think he does obsess a little.

"Yeah, I think my father had that," Mikey mused.

"Wow, really?" asked Sid.

"No. Well maybe, I dunno. I never knew him," Mikey replied with a contemplative smile.

"Join the club brother," said Crash, raising a paw and sharing a high five with Mikey.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Sarah jumped in surprise as the sudden anguished cry echoed around the clearing from somewhere just beyond the snowdrift. Given the volume and cringe inducing agony it contained, she could only assume that somewhere nearby something very large had either managed to break every bone in its body or had just come home to find it's mate in the snow with another animal.

Ellie sighed, "That's our queue, come on guys. Nice meeting you Mikey. You too Sarah."

"See you around," said Sid, as he joined Ellie as she began to lead the others away toward the source of the scream.

"It's been cool," Crash called as he and his brother turned and scampered away onto Ellie's back leaving Sarah and Mikey alone on the edge of the snowfield.

With a sigh Sarah turned around and began the long trek back up the hill. By the sound of things her entire night had been completely wasted lying unconscious underneath a fallen tree, and now that it was daylight there wasn't a whole lot left to do except go back to her tree and wait around until she felt bored enough to fall asleep until evening, assuming the damn thing was still standing of course.

"And where exactly are you off too?" Mikey called suddenly.

"Home, where else?" she replied, "No point hanging around here waiting to become hawk-chow."

"Well look at you miss ungrateful," the glider exclaimed as he caught up to her.

"What the heck are you on about now, Mikey?"

"Just think about it for a minute their hon'. Those blokes saved ya' tail there and now you're just gonna walk out on 'em?" he asked in reply.

"It's not like they asked for anything."

"Then why don't _you_ ask them?" Mikey pointed, "That Manny bloke sounded awful broken up about his little playground thingo."

Sarah stopped and stared at Mikey for moment, desperately concocting some way she could get out of this without having to knock the poor guy out with some sort of big stick. Unfortunately nothing seemed to come to mind, not that his hilariously inane smile was helping her focus.

"Come on, Sarah, just for one day. I'll even help ya' out myself, just out of the goodness of my heart, whatcha say?" he continued, and as hard as she tried Sarah couldn't think of anyway of getting out of this without throwing Mikey off a cliff, and being with him glider that probably wouldn't work out anyway.

She sighed in defeat, "Alright, fine I'll help out."

"Hah, that's my girl!" Mikey cheered happily, "Well, lets be on our way then, the sweet hours of the morn are gone but I have a feelin' the best is yet to come. Shouldn't keep the future waiting."

With that he immediately turned and set off with Sarah following close behind, both scampering on all fours across the snow and toward the long line of gargantuan mammoth footprints that she assumed to lead to the herd and their playground.

As they reached the top of a nearby snowdrift she spotted the herd instantly and fortunately not that far away. From what she could see they were standing quite a distance away surveying what appeared to be a pile of fallen trees and other assorted junk. From this distance it was hard to tell exactly what that junk was, but as she and Mikey drew closer the reason for Manny's dismay became painfully clear.

As the two of them skidded to a halt in the snow about twenty or thirty feet away they found a jumbled mess of what seemed to have been quite a collection of fascinating trinkets lying in pieces before them.

"Crikey, what a sight," Mikey exclaimed sadly.

Sarah sighed in agreement. The lengths some parents will go to for their kids never ceased to astound her and the sight of such effort and fatherly dedication reduced to rubble overnight was enough to give her that odd feeling in her stomach that always served as a warning of a potential blubbering situation developing.

"Well better see what we can do I guess?" Sarah said to Mikey as she started toward the herd who seemed to have already begun their own cleanup.

"Hiho fellas!" Mikey called as the two of them approached.

"Who the… oh, hi there!" Ellie greeted them happily.

"Hey," Sarah replied.

"Hiya!" called Sid.

"Yeah hey, hi and all that, what do you want?" Manny asked, his voice slightly muffled by the large tree segment he was carrying with his trunk.

"Well seein' as you helped Sarah and me in our little hour of need, we just wanted to swing by n' see if we could lend a paw or two in yours," Mikey replied.

"Why thank you," said Ellie.

"So, uh, what can we do here?" Sarah asked, gazing around at all the assorted debris.

"Well we're just about done cleanin' up here, but I guess you guys could help us put it all back together again," answered Ellie, "That's if it's okay with you, Manny?"

"Hmm?" Manny grumbled as turned away from setting the tree down in the pile, "Yeah fine, as long as they don't get in the way."

Ellie smiled, "That's a yes."

"Where do we start then?" asked Sarah.

"You think you can make a mobile?"

"A what?" asked Sarah.

"One of those hanging things for a baby?" Ellie asked. "The last few were made out of ice, but after all the trouble they caused I'd rather settle for a nice wooden one."

Thinking back to the few fleeting glances she'd had of the herd's youngest member it seemed to Sarah that Peaches really would have outgrown those kinds of infant novelties by now, but then again it wasn't like she knew a whole lot about mammoths and looking to Mikey it seemed he was just about as stumped as she was about this.

"Well a mate of mine was pretty good at whittling stuff out of bits of wood an' tree bark," Mikey replied. "Showed me a thing or two about it as well but nothing I ever did could hold a candle to his. The fella' was bloody legend."

"Do you think you could ask him to do it?" Ellie asked eagerly.

"Might be a bit difficult," the glider replied with a furrowed brow.

"Why?"

"He's dead." Mikey replied bluntly. "He and another mate of mine died in a rock slide a while back."

"Oh, I-I'm sorry to…" the mammoth began before Mikey interrupted her with raised paw.

"No need love. Long time ago to, no one you'd know, doin' somethin' no one ever should've. Evolution plain and simple. "

"Well, umm, do you think you could do it?" Ellie asked.

"I'd give it my best shot but I can't give ya' any guarantees. Whatcha after?"

"Could you do three mammoths, two possums, a tiger, a weasel and…" Ellie looked back at Manny before continuing in a whisper, "a sloth."

"For you darlin', anything." Mikey responded with a cheerful wink.

"Thanks a million," said Ellie.

"Uh, wait, wait minute, you did say weasel?"

"Yeah, why, is it a problem?"

"Nah, no problem, just makin' sure," he replied.

Ellie gave them both a brief smile of thanks before turning away and joining Manny who had begun attempting to balance a large, crude wooden plank on top of a small boulder.

"You do have a problem don't you," said Sarah.

"Well I was thinkin' this mobile thingo was some kinda family affair," Mikey replied. "I mean possums, mammoths, a tiger and a sloth they've got all of those, but I don't see where the weasel fits in."

"Why, what's wrong with it?" Sarah asked, confused.

"Have you ever seen a weasel?"

"I've heard of them," she replied honestly. "Long, tubey mammal things with stumpy legs that live somewhere on the other side of the sea. A bird told me about it, they talk about all kinds of things when they come back from migration."

"Unless this herd's got some crazy long distance thing goin' there must be an actual weasel 'round here, or at least there was since I've never seen any in all the years I've been here. Trouble is _they _haven't been here that long and I'm pretty darn sure of that."

"How?"

"This place was nothin' but an empty plain of snow next to an even emptier ice field 'til a couple years back when this lot turned up one afternoon," Mikey spread his arms wide, apparently indicating everyone in entire area. "I was just sittin' in my tree up on the hill when all these mammals turned up on the horizon in one of the biggest migrations I've ever seen. Said they came from some valley out west that got flooded somehow, and since they all decided to hang around I guess they must have found somethin' they really liked about this place."

"And what does this have to do with the weasel?" Sarah asked.

"Nothin' apparently," Mikey answered with a shrug. "I didn't see any then and all the time up to now. Tell ya' what I'll work on that little puzzler while you be a darl' and get me something tough n' sharp, these claws can give a nasty scratch but they aint up to chiselling."

Sarah just nodded in response as she turned away and started walking toward the other herd members.

"Hey uh, Sid, right?" Sarah asked as she approached the sloth, who at the moment appeared to be doing little more than wandering around the playground trying to look busy while contributing absolutely nothing to the work.

"Huh!" the sloth exclaimed as he spun around in surprise, "Oh, how's it hanging… uh?"

"It's Sarah," Sarah replied, "Whatcha up to?

"Ah, not much," Sid answered a little dejectedly, "Manny just told me to stay out of the way, so that's what I'm doing. I said I'd look after peaches for 'em but, well… Honestly sometimes I think he doesn't even wants me around anymore."

"Why's that?" Sarah asked.

"I dunno? You'd think he'd wanna keep a looker like me, eh?" Sid replied with a small grin, "You know, bit of eye candy for the ladies."

Sarah laughed, "Heh, if you say so."

"What?" the sloth exclaimed indignantly.

"Hey, no judgment here," she replied, "I'm a possum, I only look at possums. Heck, you could be the sexiest sloth on earth for all I know."

"Really? You think so?" asked Sid.

Sarah shrugged.

"I dunno," she replied and since she could already see this conversation going absolutely nowhere helpful she began to turn away with the intent of checking out the log pile for some sharp sticks, "Look, I'm actually kinda busy right now, so I'll just-"

"Would ya' like some help? I've got nothing else to do around here," Sid cut in eagerly, "We can walk and talk while we're at it."

Sarah paused to think for a moment, not that it took much brainpower to work this one out. An extra hand would be immeasurably helpful no question, plus it would certainly be nice to have someone other than Mikey to talk to around here. That funny old glider was a nice guy make no mistake, but she'd always felt more comfortable in a group, although admittedly she was far more used to groups whose members were of much shorter stature than these mammals.

"Sure,' she finally replied, "Know where I can find something sharp?"

"Manny says I can't be trusted with sharp objects," said Sid.

Even though Sarah raised an eyebrow in curiosity, she still couldn't help chuckling a little.

"You know where I can find any?"

"Hmm, there were lots of rocks and stuff around when we got here. Some 'em looked pretty sharp so Ellie told Crash and Eddie to take Peaches over to the ice fields while we cleaned up here so she wouldn't step on any," Sid paused for a moment to think before pointing at something off to the right, and Sarah followed his outstretched claw toward a small pile of objects, most of which were mangled beyond recognition. Some of the cracked and splintered edges actually looked pretty nasty, even from this distance.

"That's where Manny put all the broken playground stuff." Sid explained.

Sarah immediately grinned and rubbed her paws together gleefully. "Well, you know what they say," she said as they both started trudging through the snow toward the pile of debris, "A mammoth's trash is a possum's treasure."

"Really do they say that? I've never heard it," Sid asked.

"It's an old possum saying," Sarah replied, "You'd have be one of us to understand."

"Oh, neat!" Sid exclaimed happily.

The two of them walked in relative silence for the next few moments, until they reached the debris pile, which admittedly seemed quite a bit bigger to Sarah now that she was standing next to it. Although it was hard to tell from where she stood, there wasn't very much around which appeared to be very possum sized and even less of it looked particularly sharp, certainly not enough for Mikey's purpose. Still maybe this was a case of the old scavenger motto 'sometimes you gotta go in to get the good stuff'.

"Let's have a dig around shall we?" Sarah announced, walking closer to the pile before scurrying upwards on all fours, "You can dig around here while I take a closer look."

"Wha- where are you going?" Sid asked.

Sarah smiled as she poked her nose into one of the larger holes to get a quick sniff before she crawled any further, "I'm going in."

She immediately crawled into the hole and began to rummage around. It was dark and incredibly cramped inside amongst all the broken logs and leaf litter, with only a few small prisms of light shining through the openings around her. It was a damn good thing she was possum, otherwise she probably wouldn't have been able to see anything at all.

Outside she could hear Sid beginning to dig around as well, whether he was having any luck or not she couldn't tell. Come to think of it, they really should have agreed on some kind of code word to use if either of them found something useful. Ah well, too late now.

'_God it's cold in here, the faster I find something sharp for Mikey the better. Wait what was that?'_

She backed up a little and stared into one of the smaller crevices in a dark corner just off to her left. She could have sworn she saw something glinting there. Just to check, she cocked her head left to right repeatedly in an attempt to see it again and sure enough, there it was, a small glint of light in the lower right-hand corner.

As she drew closer and her eyes began to adjust to the darkness she spotted the source of her curiosity almost instantly. There was a small, grey piece of stone embedded in the side of a tree trunk, and without even a moment's hesitation she grabbed hold of it with her paws, ignoring the sudden icy bite of the thin, shiny coating of frost, and began to pull.

At first her paws simply slid right off and she was sent reeling backwards into a rather leafy tree branch. Cursing profusely, Sarah rolled back onto her stomach, scurried back into the crevice and tried again, this time making sure to grab on with a good strong grip. Although the results weren't quite as immediate as she'd hoped, after a few seconds of straining against the hold of the trunk while ignoring the sudden stinging sensation that had erupted in her paws, she began to hear a distinct crackling sound as the small stony fragment began to slide downward. A few moments more and the stinging sensation in her paws was quickly reaching the point of becoming unbearable and the ice had begun to melt into a slippery coating of strangely warm moisture but Sarah persevered out of the simple stubborn determination that this little stone was not going to beat her.

Finally about a minute later, after a small amount of up-down alternation, a loud crack split the air and she was once again thrown backwards, except this time the soft thump of her small furry body slamming into the surrounding rock and wood was accompanied by a small clattering sound as the stone came down somewhere next to her. Wasting no time, Sarah, ignorant of the pain in her paws, grabbed hold of the stone and scurried immediately toward the nearest exit she could find.

"Hey Sid!" she cried happily as she emerged from the debris pile, "Possum popcorn!"

"What's that mean?" the sloth asked as he walked into view from the opposite side of the pile.

"Dunno," Sarah replied, "But I found this thing."

"What?" Sid asked.

"This, uh, pointy rock," she answered, holding the stone up for Sid to see and then groaning unhappily a she noticed that she'd managed to cut one of her paws while retrieving it.

"What now then?" Sid asked eagerly, as Sarah grabbed up some snow to clean the relatively minor cut on her left fore-paw.

"Uh," Sarah pondered as she looked around the clearing for Mikey, who quite irritatingly was nowhere to be seen. "Well we're supposed to take this thing to Mikey but I…"

"Who's Mikey?" the sloth asked.

"The glider," she answered simply, and from the sloth's nodding she assumed he knew who she was stalking about. "Can you see him anywhere?"

"Nope," he said. "You think we should ask Manny or Ellie where he went?"

Seeing no other alternative Sarah opted to follow the sloth over to the big bull mammoth who replied, somewhat irritably, that the 'flying rodent thing' had gone to the ice fields.

"Did he tell you why," Sarah had asked to which the mammoth replied with simple 'No,' before continuing with what he had been doing before the two had interrupted.

"So Sid, know any big ice fields around here," Sarah asked, unable to hide her immense displeasure at having been abandoned to group of strangers by her 'friend'.

"Sure do," Sid replied, "The Emerald Ice Field."

"Emerald Ice Field? Never heard it," said Sarah, "You know how to get there?"

"Yep, it's just over that hill over there," he indicated a snowy hill just off to the right, "You walk straight East for three miles and head South just before you reach the Dead Wood, can't miss it."

"Sounds like you know the way pretty well," she commented.

"'Course, I go there everyday to watch the sunset," Sid replied, "All the cute girls hang around then. Haven't seen any lady sloths yet, but I've always got my claws crossed."

Normally Sarah may have laughed a little at that, but given the situation she remained distinctly unamused as she replied, "Well I'm kind of new here so you'd better lead the way then."

"Sure thing Sarah," said Sid, "Hey, you know we might even meet Crash and Eddie while we're there."

For a moment Sarah was about to ask exactly who the heck Sid was talking about, but then she recalled the two possums that Ellie had pointed out to her earlier. She'd said their names were Crash and Eddie. Come to think of it, Sarah could have sworn the mammoth had called them her brothers. That was definitely something worth looking into later on, but for now she had a job to do and if that required socializing with the members of the sleazier, stinkier sex than that was the price she had to pay.

Several minutes passed before the pair actually set off for the Ice Fields as Sid decided he needed a minute to say goodbye to the guys, which Sarah didn't really mind since she used that time had to bandage up her paw.

Once they finally got the chance to get going, it took them almost two and half hours to reach the Dead Wood, which in itself wasn't particularly amusing, being just a shadow of what was at one time a lush rainforest but was now a large, dense cluster of dead trees that stretched on for countless miles in the direction of the western mountain ranges. Still it wasn't a bad place to stop for some rest.

A few minutes later they were off again, this time heading directly south toward their final destination. This took them a little longer to get to, but when they finally arrived the spectacle that greeted them was certainly worth every mile. Or at least that was Sarah's opinion as she stood and gazed in awe upon the seemingly endless expanse of shimmering ice that stretched on into the horizon, its surface tinged a bright emerald green by the glow of the late-afternoon sun.

To think it was probably only the prospect of some fine sloth bootie that drew Sid here at sunset every day, but then again he didn't really seem like such a bad guy, none of the males she'd met here so far seemed to be. Perhaps these two possums weren't going to turn out to be as bad as she'd presumed; after all they'd seemed nice enough during the brief amount of time that she was with them. A little crass and competitive perhaps but that didn't have to mean she should write them off entirely.

Looking off to the left and right, Sarah could see that there was already quite a sizeable congregation of animals lined up along the edge, presumably to watch the immanent sunset. Along with these gawkers there were also children and more energetic teenagers skidding around on the ice, throwing snowballs at one another.

"There they are!" Sid yelled suddenly, and Sarah followed his gaze to a particular group of animals amongst whom she could make out the form of a very young mammoth, along with at least two other possums and...

"Mikey!" She exclaimed, sighing as she watched the glider as he skidded around rather clumsily with the others. From what she could tell from here he was apparently enjoying himself quite a bit.

_'Figures.'_

"Hi, hey guys, over here!" Sid began to cry out, "Crash, Eddie, Peaches, over here guys!"

It took a moment for this surprising but incredibly mortifying act of complete and utter public stupidity to illicit any kind of response from the other animals, fortunately however, it was only the intended recipients who looked over toward the mysterious shouting sloth without immediately rolling their eyes and turning away.

"'Sup Sidman," one of the possums called as they all skidded up onto the shore.

"What's happening sloth, Ellie alright?" the other asked, and given his brown eyes Sarah guessed this one was Eddie, "Ah, well hellooo there."

Although she wholly expected a pair suggestive, toothy smiles possibly combined with some thinly veiled question about what she was doing tonight, Sarah received nothing more than a passing 'hello' from both and a handshake from Eddie.

"Her names Sarah," said Sid, "She's that possum we rescued. She and Mikey came back to help us fix up the playground."

"Nice of ya' to help out I guess, how's the big cleanup going?" Crash asked, as he and his brother's attention to turned to Sarah.

"It's going fine," she replied, "We just came by to give this to Mikey."

Sarah held up the sharp stone she'd found for both of them to see.

"Hey Mikester!" Crash called back to Mikey, who was still skidding around with Peaches, "Sarah's got that thing you wanted."

"Eh? Oh, hey Sarah!" Mikey replied as he joined them all on the shore with Peaches following close behind, "Let's see the goods then."

Both Crash and Eddie's eyes immediately snapped to Sarah with distinctly confused looks on both their faces. Looks that immediately changed to disappointment as she merely handed the rock over to the glider, making sure to throw a smug sneer back their way as she did so.

"Ah, now that's what I'm talking about," Mikey cooed happily, "Didn't give you too much trouble did it?"

"Nah, I found it in a trash pile at the cleanup," Sarah replied. "I see you've been busy."

"Hey, can ya' blame a guy for having a little fun while he waits?" Mikey asked, "But your right I guess I'd best be gettin' to work. Tell you what, seeing as you've been so nice in giving this old glider a hand, why don't ya' take some time off for yourself."

"Wanna have a snowball match on the ice field with us?" Eddie asked eagerly, "With Mikey gone we're down one man but if you join our team we'll be even with Johnny, Tom and Steve."

"Yeah, all you gotta do is make some snowballs and use your claws to skate around on the ice throwing 'em at the other team," Crash added, "If you get knocked on your butt the other team gets a point, same goes for them and whoever has the most points at sunset wins."

Deliberately drawing out her pause so as to appear to be thinking it over, Sarah gazed over the two possum's shoulders at her would be rivals who were currently skating around on the ice with their claws, shouting and making obscene gestures. One aardvark, a beaver and a hedgehog, not the easiest opponents in the world but she'd faced worse.

For as long as she could remember she'd never been a stranger to the odd game of rough and tumble wrestling with her brother, a friendly possum if a little boorish times, who still turned out to be gay despite years of bragging about all the girls he'd had. However looking down at her left fore-paw which was still stinging rather uncomfortably, it seemed the answer was going to have to be no. She'd already suffered two major mishaps today and wasn't exactly keen on looking for a third.

"Yeah, uh thanks for the invite and all," Sarah replied, a little dejectedly, "But I think I'll sit this one out."

"Hey no problem babe," Crash said, as he and Eddie turned around and headed back out onto the ice. "Just give us a shout if you wanna join in later okay."

"Wish us luck!" Eddie called back to her.

Sarah chuckled, _'Two on three? You're gonna need more than luck buddy.'_

After watching as the two possums skated out to face their probable doom, she turned back to face Sid only to find that the sloth was no longer standing beside her and was in fact almost fifty feet away walking down the shoreline. Of course he was; sex before friendship, all males was the same.

Sarah sighed and walked over to Mikey, who was currently sitting against a pine tree already at work carving into a small piece of pinewood.

"Looks like it's just you and me again," she said as she plonked down next to him.

"Ha ha, not for long love," the glider replied, using his stone to point out the rapidly falling sun, "Those blokes'll be finishing up any minute now, then it'll be you, me and them. Ya' think you can handle that?"

"They're just boys Mikey," said Sarah, "I'm not allergic to them or anything. I just can't stand the way they act around me. Just because I've got girl parts doesn't mean they can stand around flexing and talking about how great they are, hoping that I'll jump them the moment the mood takes me."

"Hmm, maybe you're just hangin' around with the wrong crowd there hon'. You ever thought about expandin' ya' horizons?" asked Mikey.

"Why do you think I moved here?"

"I always thought it was the lovely views," he replied, pausing for a moment to blow some wood chips off the little figure he was currently carving. " Ya' know it wouldn't hurt ya' to have a few more mates around here, apart from myself obviously, and as far as these two fella's go, well, you could do a heck of lot worse."

"Since when did I give you permission to offer me dating advice?" Sarah asked.

"Hey this has nothin' to do with that. There's lots of different kinds of love in this world, but most 'em can be narrowed down to just two. You gotta learn to differentiate the two Sarah, else you'll be spendin' the rest of ya' days on this world alone."

Sarah didn't reply, as stubborn as she was she knew he was right, and she could see he knew it too whether he admitted it or not.

"Besides," he added with a mischievous grin, "What's wrong with a little fling now then?"

"Mikey!" she exclaimed with a laugh while giving the glider a playful punch on the shoulder.

"Hey settle down there, I gotta concentrate on my work here too ya' know," the glider replied, "Why don't ya' just lie back an' enjoy the sunset. Let old Mikey get his work done."

"No problem Mikey," said Sarah, as she lay back against the tree and directed her gaze across the ice field and toward the setting sun.

She had to blink her eyes a few times to make sure she was seeing anything at first , but as she watched the sunset she could have sworn the ice had begun to glow a strong fluorescent green. In a way it was almost hypnotizing, but then that was probably because of her reluctance to tear her eyes away for fear of missing even a single beautiful moment of this glorious event. Suddenly she could see why all these animals turned up in the afternoons to watch, and to think this happened everyday here. There was no way she was ever going to leave this place. Not unless someone dragged her, kicking and screaming all the way.

"Heh, ya' know somthin' this kinda reminds me of an evening back home," Mikey said wistfully. "Think it was date actually."

"Did it have a happy ending?" Sarah asked, perhaps a little too bluntly but then she didn't really feel in the mood for beating around the bush.

"Depends on ya' definition," the glider replied with cheeky smile. "We both had a nice evenin' if that's whatcha mean, but if ya' askin' if we got up to anything afterwards than I'm sorry to disappoint ya'. "

Sarah let out a little laugh at that just as the final few rays of sunlight began to fall beneath the horizon, "Still, you might as well enjoy the good stuff while it lasts."

"And how are ya' gonna do that then?" asked Mikey.

"Dunno," Sarah answered while watching as the two possum brothers and their fellow snowball players made their way back onto the shore, "I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."


	3. Getting to Know Your Neighbours

**Here we are. Chapter 3 final version, proofread and edited by my bro. Sorry chapter 5's taking so long but I'm waiting for my good brother to catch up because he insists on proofreading every chapter chronologically, and he unfortunately fell behind due to illness.**

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Chapter 3

Getting to Know Your Neighbours

The sun was high in the clear blue sky and the midmorning air was filled with sounds of birdsong and animal chatter as Sarah sat in wide eyed apprehension with Crash and Eddie atop a small outcrop overlooking the site of the playground, as the two brother's recounted to her their surprisingly riveting tale of surviving the valley flood.

"… so then Ellie pushed us out of this little hole in the wall and told us to go get help," Crash said excitedly, "But the other guys were nowhere around to help us."

Mikey certainly hadn't been lying when he'd told her that this herd had some stories to tell, and although Sarah had never really been a fan of long stories for some reason she found herself hooked to their every word. They sure had been through a lot, especially the older mammoth, Manny. Heck by the sound of things he'd just about lost his entire family twice over; and Ellie, Crash and Eddie's half sister, well, her story was every bit as heart wrenching as it was bizarre. One moment a possum, the next a mammoth, the sheer emotional magnitude of such a discovery was more than Sarah could fathom. From the sound of things the realization hadn't exactly been very easy on her brothers either, who although having admitted to reserving their own doubts about her from the beginning, were still less than impressed with the manner in which Manny had introduced Ellie to the reality of her situation.

Still listening intently to what was surely the climax of their little story, Sarah, reached snatched up a peanut from the small pile the three possums had gathered together between themselves for their little brunch break.

"Uh, Crash," Eddie interrupted, "Didn't Manny get Ellie out of the cave before he fought the sea monsters?"

Crash glared at his brother, "No he had to fight 'em while he was getting her out. What the hell Eddie?"

"Yeah I know, but-" Eddie began but Crash interrupted him.

"Just shut up and let me tell it bro, I'm the oldest," his brother exclaimed.

"No you're not, I am!" Eddie cried indignantly.

Sarah couldn't help giggling. The two of them had been bickering on and off the entire time, and although it really killed the pace of the story it was always funny when it happened.

"Who cares?" Crash replied.

"I do actually," said Sarah, "You guys gonna make with the story soon, or should I just eat my peanuts and get back to work?"

The two possum brothers shared a questioning glance at one another before looking toward Sarah.

"Well," Crash began, taking a peanut before continuing to talk through the side of his muzzle, "The glacier just seemed to split and slide apart, and all the water just sorta drained away. I don't know how it happened, no one does."

Eddie nodded in agreement, "It's a mystery."

"So that's it?" Sarah asked, "The glacier magically broke apart and saved the valley from flooding. Why'd you leave if everything turned out alright in the end anyhow?"

"What can I say?" Eddie replied, "We're a herd who's always on the road; well, until junior was born anyway. Then Manny and Ellie wanted to settle down here and raise Peaches. We thought about legging it on our own, but Ellie's our sister and she promised mom she'd make sure we reach twenty five. If we left she'd never stop looking for us, and we don't wanna do that to her."

"Besides with a dad like Manny it's up to us to make sure Peaches get's a taste of danger every now and then. We're her uncles you know, it's our duty to show her the spice of life," Crash added after swallowing his mouthful of peanut.

"Yeah, about that," Sarah began, "What's it like being a teenage uncle? I mean my youngest uncle, Robby, was like twenty seven or something when I was born, but you're, what? Eighteen?"

"Twenty-one actually," said Eddie, "But you're right, it is pretty weird."

"Makes me feel kinda old," Crash added.

"Mom would be pretty happy though," said Eddie. "If she was still around I mean."

"Parents huh," Sarah remarked with smile. "Never seem to hang around for the good bits."

"Not really," Crash replied, "I don't think she was expecting any grandkids from us."

Suddenly Sarah noticed the sound of heavy, thudding footsteps approaching from somewhere behind her, and as she turned to look over her shoulder she was greeted by the sight of four massive, immensely shaggy red tree trunks.

"Hiya Manny man," Crash greeted jovially, "Wanna peanut?"

He indicated the small pile of nuts that sat on the rock surface between the three possums.

"Not really," Manny replied with a dismissive wave of his trunk, "You guys done here? We gotta get back to work soon or we'll never get done before Ellie gets back."

Sarah smiled, "Sure thing Manny."

The three possums immediately jumped to their feet, Crash gathering up the remaining peanuts while Sarah and Eddie followed Manny back down to the playground. It was strange the way that Sarah's perception of Manny had changed so much since that first rather unflattering meeting almost a week ago. At first she'd had him painted up as nothing but an enormous jerk who treated those around him with nothing short of utter contempt, and she had chosen to treat him accordingly by ignoring his demands and repeatedly bringing his deplorable personality into the spotlight, all in the interests of showing that she would not be bullied by the mammoth just because he was several hundred times her size.

Unfortunately, it was only two days ago that she became aware of the tragic loss of his first mate and child many years ago and with that in mind she instantly regretted her premature assumptions and the way she had reacted to him. But then perhaps it was a necessary misunderstanding, because if not for the massive argument the two of them had had after Sarah had snapped over a comment he made about her attitude, she might never have found out about the tragedy which had acted to draw this rag-tag herd of mammalian misfits together.

As for the playground itself, the past weeks worth of work had done wonders on what was once nothing but a pile of mangled sticks and rocks but was now coming together quite nicely as a rather spacious play area for the local kiddies. A few days ago Sid had told her that the playground was originally meant for Peaches and a select group of her friends. However it had never actually occurred to Manny that for Peaches to actually make any friends, she'd actually have to meet the other kids and logically what better way to meet other children than to open the playground to all of them? So after a little bit of convincing from the other herd members Manny decided to just open the play area for everyone.

Naturally this meant that during the week the herd had to contend with constant questions regarding how long it would be until the playground was repaired, which was admittedly rather tiresome. But on the plus side plenty of the other parents had offered to help, mostly in the form of fathers who were eager to get their kids of their back for a while so that they could enjoy some private time with their mates; typical spring behavior really.

"Ah look who finally decided to show up" Manny pointed out as he, Sarah, Crash and Eddie walked down from the top of the outcrop, "How're things on the plains Diego?"

The orange furred saber-tooth momentarily turned away from watching Sid, who was working on the slide, and replied with a surprising amount of enthusiasm, "Fine I gue- Hey watch it Sid!"

The sloth quickly jumped back from the ice-slide he was working on as it suddenly began to emit a series of loud crackling noises.

"Hey calm down tiger, don't getcha tail in a twist. It's just the sunlight warmin' the ice a little bit," Mikey called from an overhanging tree branch where he had decided to spend his time loafing about, "Just pour a little water on it come nightfall n' let it freeze while ya' sleep. It'll be good as new come mornin'."

Diego shot a dangerous glare toward Mikey as he walked over to Manny and the possums. Of all the herd members Sarah definitely found this tiger to be the most disagreeable. He rarely spoke to Ellie or her brothers, and only occasionally shared exchanges with Manny over very superficial subjects like food or weather. If anything it was Sid who he seemed the most comfortable with, since the sloth was the only herd member who really seemed to communicate well with him. At least on the few occasions he was actually around since the tiger tended to spend a great deal of his time out prowling the snowfields. For what exactly no one in the herd seemed to know, or at least was willing to say.

"Why the hell is that flying rodent still hanging around?" the tiger asked, his voice quiet but thick with contempt.

"Hey!" Sarah exclaimed.

"I said _flying_ rodent," said Diego.

"Ooooh, him," Sarah gave a directive nod toward Mikey, who was currently lazing back in his branch with an absent smile, "He said he would help me out if I helped you guys fix up your little playground thing."

"I think you're forgetting the part about him giving you one," Crash said before sharing a mischievous snigger with his brother.

"One what?" asked Sarah.

"Aw come on Sarah," Crash replied with an impish grin, "You know what I mean."

In the moments of realization that followed Sarah immediately felt an incredible sinking feeling in her the pit of her stomach. She knew what he meant, and the answer was certainly an undeniable, unequivocal no. Still she wasn't angry, embarrassed certainly, but it was an understandable mistake, of course that didn't make it any less mortifying though.

"I'm not sleeping with him," Sarah hissed.

"Bummer, how long you two been going out then?" Crash asked, but although it was clear that both he and Eddie were eager to find out it was Manny who spoke next after breaking up their little conversation with a very loud and deliberate throat clear.

"Hate to break up you're little chat but we've got work to do," The mammoth said. "If you three wanted to have a relationship talk you should've done it while you were on break. Now how about you go finish putting the snow mammals' faces on while Diego and I finish up the jungle gym."

"Uh yeah, about that," Diego began a little awkwardly, "I was actually only here coz I promised Ellie I'd drop by to say hi to the kid, but they don't seem to be here."

"Ellie took Peaches to the hot springs today," Manny replied, "You'd probably know that if you hadn't been such a stranger lately."

"You're not planning on leaving again are you?" Sid asked, poking his head out from beneath the slide to speak.

Diego laughed, "This old tiger aint going anywhere buddy. When I promised I'd be Peaches' god-father I meant it. I've just, got some stuff to work out, that's all."

"Well, would ya' be a friend and tell us when you've got your _stuff_ sorted then?" Manny asked, "Peaches is really starting to miss you, you know."

"No problem," Diego replied, as he turned and started toward the edge of the clearing, "I guess I should go say hi to Peaches. I'll try to be back before nightfall."

After saying his final goodbyes, the tiger set off back out onto the snow field at a hurried pace. He certainly seemed agitated by something, and normally Sarah would have loved to have helped, but if anything experience had taught her to always steer well clear of peoples personal business and there was no way in hell she was going to go testing those boundaries with a tiger. So she instead joined Crash and Eddie as they headed over to the snow sculptures with the intent of affixing some interesting new facial qualities.

"So uh, about your boyfriend back there?" Crash asked suddenly.

Sarah sighed, "Look nimrod, he's not my boyfriend. I barely know him at all. He's just some guy I ran into on my first day here who offered to show me around the place. I honestly don't know why he keeps following me around all the time, but he's not a jerk and he seems to know his way around so I've got no problem with the guy."

"Plus he's like twice your age," Eddie pointed out.

"You know, I don't actually have a problem with that," Sarah answered honestly, "He seems nice enough, but I really think of him as more of a friend type of guy."

"Where's he come from?" Crash asked, "I mean, with that accent and stuff, he sure as heck aint from around here."

"Hell if I know," Sarah replied, "He never told me and I never asked."

"Why not?"

"Why should I? It's not like it changes anything."

"Well the last guy we met who had an accent like that was Buck, and he was some foreign weasel who lives with dinosaurs under the ice fields," Crash noted, to which Sarah could only respond by raising an eyebrow in disbelief.

'_Ice Fields, Weasel, Dinosaurs?'_she thought, _'What the heck have you been huffing?'_

"Hey you think they know each other?" asked Eddie.

Sarah could only really shrug in confusion and disbelief at such an odd question, "I don't know. Why don't you ask him?" All she could really think now was whether this was some kind of really badly disguised 'gotcha' prank or these two were more insane than she'd originally thought.

"Yeah we'll do that," said Crash, "But first it's face making time. Everyone get some stuff together, we've got some extreme makeovers to do."

For the next few minutes the three of them split up to search for items to use as limbs, faces and other accessories for the snow mammals. Sarah didn't find much herself; just a few twigs and pebbles that she scrounged up from the side of the creek. Luckily Crash and Eddie had far more luck, returning from their little scavenger hunt with a surprisingly varied collection of items including, among a great many other things, some of the green tinted ice from the Emerald Ice Field and a bunch of carrots. Sarah didn't bother asking how, these two had been living here a lot longer than she had it was only normal to expect them to know a lot more about where to find what. It was still a little embarrassing though.

"Where do ya' think we should start?" Crash asked after everything had been laid out on the snow.

"How about faces?" Eddied suggested, indicating the small pile of twigs, "They're easiest."

"What do you think Sarah?" asked Crash.

Sarah just shrugged, "Whatever's easiest, you're the master designer."

"Faces it is then," Eddie said as both he and Crash grabbed up a few of the assorted items each and started climbing onto the snow mammals, "Hey Sarah, you gonna help out or what?"

Mildly embarrassed by her sudden spate of inactivity, Sarah obediently headed over to the pile, grabbed up some pebbles, a small stringy thing and a couple of seed pods and climbed up onto a snow mammal of her own.

"So you two aren't an item, then?" Eddie asked.

"What?" asked Sarah.

"You and Mikey," Eddie replied, "You said you guys were just friends."

"Yeah, so," Sarah answered as she pushed a seedpod into the head of the snow sculpture.

"Do you, uh, have a boyfriend? I mean it's that time of the season after all, and we haven't found a single female who hasn't yet," Eddie asked, and Sarah suddenly noticed that Crash had also stopped working and was staring in her direction; both of them clearly very eager for an answer.

'_Crap,'_ Sarah though to herself, _'Should've seen this coming.'_

Of course the answer was no, and Sarah was only too happy to say it. The only problem was the ramifications of such an answer, the worst being the never ending propositions that were sure to follow. Still she'd trapped herself big time by admitting that Mikey wasn't her mate, and thanks to that spectacular lack of foresight there was nothing else to say now but the truth.

"No," she answered with a sigh, "I don't have a boyfriend, and I don't want one."

"Oh, uh, okay, that's cool," Eddie said happily.

Although Sarah was admittedly a little taken aback by this unusually accepting reply, she'd had more than enough experience to know that if these two really had their sights set on her this was unlikely to be the end of it and for some odd reason she actually didn't want it to.

"Hey Eddie, what do you think?" Crash asked, indicating the rather skewed looking sloth face of his snow mammal.

"Hmm, needs more ugly," Eddie commented with grin.

Sarah rolled her eyes and continued trying unsuccessfully to get the stringy vine to stick to the face of her mammal in a shape that at least vaguely resembling a smiling mammoth until, after a few moments of frustrating failure, she just hawked up a spit ball and used it to freeze the vine in place.

"Man I'm bored of this already," Eddie complained, "Hey Crash, whatdya' say we duck out for a round of hockey on the ice field."

Crash shrugged, "I dunno, I'm doing pretty well here." He leaned back to admire his work of indescribably grotesque art, "You think it's ugly enough?"

"It'll do bro," Eddie replied, as he hastily clambered down onto the snow, "C'mon let's go while old grumpy tusks isn't looking."

"Yeah sure. I'm done here anyway," Crash said as he joined his brother on the ground, "You wanna come and play this time Sarah. We got our butts handed to us last time, but we'll do much better with even teams."

Sarah thought for a moment before answering, "Might as well, nothing much else worth doing around here. Can Mikey come too?"

"What, is he your dad or something?" asked Crash. "You don't need the guy to watch your tail twenty four seven."

"But he's a friend," said Sarah.

"So, aren't we your friends too?" asked Crash.

"Well kind of, but-"

"But what? C'mon we're trustworthy guys aren't we Eddie?" said Crash, to which Eddie nodded enthusiastically, "See! We'll just go, play a quick game of hockey with the guys. We'll be back before dinner time."

Sarah anxiously bit her lip as she stared over toward the tree where Mikey was sleeping, and was immediately calmed when she could see that he was lying in the branch with one eye open staring directly at her with a broad grin on his face.

"I'm in," she finally answered with a smile, "Where do you keep the hockey pucks?"

Crash and Eddie both laughed.

"Right this way babe," Crash replied.

_Minutes later…_

Sarah cried loudly as she leapt forward toward the terrified otter boy in front of her, sending their two small bodies slamming heavily onto the ice before sliding for a for few feet and coming to rest as an indistinguishable tangle of fur.

"Yeah! You wanna play, well this is how we play!" she bellowed furiously as she grabbed up her stick and got to her feet, "C'mon get up so I can floor you again!"

Turning away from the whimpering pile of fur at her feet Sarah gazed around for a few seconds, scanning the surroundings for the next player with the puck. It didn't take her long to spot the little porcupine girl, and when she did she was off like a bullet, tearing up the ice with her claws as she sped toward her target, closing the gap in seconds. However, the porcupine spotted her approaching and hastened her pace in an attempt to gain the few feet necessary to get a good shot at the goal. The young but determined goal keeper, an aardvark named Jason, readied himself to save the impending shot.

_Wait, where the heck is Crash? He's supposed to be on defence!_

Sarah growled in frustration at her teammate's apparent disappearance at such a critical moment and began pushing herself to go faster, but so was the attacking player. The porcupine was speeding toward the goal and there was nothing Sarah could do but curse and try desperately to catch up. The distance was closing rapidly, and with every strained breath she could feel her heart pounding ever faster in a mixture of anxiety and exhaustion as she pushed harder and harder to gain some speed. Suddenly a loud thwack sound echoed into the air as the puck was sent hurtling toward the goal and Jason, due chiefly to nerves and adrenaline, managed to jump into the puck's path just a fraction of a second too early, missing the it by a hair's width.

"Aaaarrrrrggg!" Sarah cried out in anger as the puck soared threw the goal and the opposition team started to cheer.

"And that's game!" exclaimed the adult male beaver who had volunteered to referee the game, "Game goes to the possum's twenty-five to twenty-three."

Sarah threw her stick to the ground and skated over toward Crash who was doubled over and panting like mad several meters from the goal circle, where he was supposed to have been. She made a point of smacking him over the back of the head as she reached him yelling, "Where the hell were you back there? You let her waltz right through!"

"Jeez gimme a break babe, I'm wiped out here," Crash exclaimed defensively.

"No, a fat sack of crap is what you are!" Sarah screamed, "Get you flabby ass in shape or I'll beat you into shape!" She smacked him twice more, "And don't you _ever_ call me babe!"

"Whoa, chill out Sarah," Eddie exclaimed as he and Jason skated over to her, "We won!"

"Yeah cool it," said Jason backing up Eddie.

"I know we won, but, but…," Sarah began to stutter as the adrenaline wore off and exhaustion began to set in.

"Heh heh, come on let's go get some something to drink, I'm parched," Eddie interrupted, laughing as he looked over at his brother who was rubbing his head and glaring furiously at Sarah, "Better get some ice for your head too eh bro?"

"Shut-up Eddie," said Crash.

They all immediately set off toward the shoreline for some much needed R&R, where the other team was quick to join them; a beaver, an otter and two porcupines, who despite their defeat were all in relatively high spirits.

"Great game girl!" one of the porcupines called to Sarah as she and her brother joined the possums on the shore, "It's nice to see another chick out on the ice."

"Even better to watch 'em lock horns like that," her brother added, "For a moment there I thought you was actually gonna catch my sister there."

Sarah just laughed. Sure she was a little disappointed by such a narrow victory, but there was no point in beating herself up about it, a win was a win after all.

"Oh come on guys, spare us the victory dance just this once!" exclaimed the beaver from the other team as Crash and Eddie joined one another in a round of 'We are the champions of the ice!' "You're only embarrassing yourselves, you do know that right?"

"Of all the males in world, huh?" the female porcupine began, "Why one of them?"

Sarah stared at her, "What do you mean?"

"Don't worry about it," the porcupine replied with dismissive wave of her paw, "When you're late to the punch you take whatever you can get. Which one did you pick?"

"I didn't _pick_ either of 'em," Sarah replied, a little annoyed that the conversation had led in this direction again, "They're just some guys I met last week after the earthquake. I mean, I guess you could say they're friends, but-"

"You've decided to go cold this season haven't you?" The porcupine sister stated with a raised eyebrow.

Sarah was taken aback by the sudden bluntness of the question, even if it was true, "If that's what you wanna call it, yes, I'm out for the season."

"What was that about the season?" the male porcupine cut in, "You girls talking 'bout your boyfriends or something?"

His sister glared at him, "Girl talk, shove off Russell," and her brother immediately made a hasty retreat, "Brothers."

"Don't I know it," said Sarah.

"Man, I can't imagine skipping a whole season; I mean I get blue enough just waiting for the next one to roll around," the porcupine continued, "But hey, that's just me. I bet you got your reasons."

Reasons she had, but truth be told Sarah hadn't exactly gone an entire season by herself before. Looking at it now, she couldn't help but wonder whether she'd perhaps been a little premature in her judgment. After all she'd just moved here, the males around these parts were probably completely different to the thuggish bores that she was used to. Plus if procreation wasn't her goal, than there were plenty of ways around that.

"Hey Mikester!" Eddie cried, and as Sarah turned to see what he was talking about she was greeted by Mikey walking down towards them with a large green sack swung over his shoulder.

"Hiho fella's" the glider greeted happily.

"You missed the game man!" exclaimed Jason.

"Oh well, fashionably late as always then, eh?" said Mikey, "How'd ya' do Sarah?"

Sarah shrugged, "Okay I guess."

"Didn't rough 'em up too much didja?" Mikey added with barely a hint of concern.

"You kidding me?" Crash replied, "We kicked tail out there!"

"What was the score?" the glider asked as he slid the woven-leaf sack off his shoulder and placed it onto the snow beside him.

"Twenty-five to Twenty-Three," said Eddie.

"A narrow victory then?" said Mikey.

"It would've been wider if Crash had been paying attention," Sarah complained.

"You still going on about that?" asked Crash, "Forgive and forget babe, it's just a game."

"I dunno bro, she's got a point. You did kinda suck today," said Eddie.

Crash opened his mouth to respond but Mikey interrupted by loudly clearing his throat before making a comment of his own.

"Everyone has one o' those days and there's no point beatin' ya'selves up about it. Besides, ya' won didn't ya'? That's gotta be worth something no matter what the margin," he said before dragging his bag forward and starting to untie the knot of reed at the top, "Who's hungry, I brought ya's all lunch." He continued smiling broadly as he let the sack fall open to reveal a small feast of different fruits and nuts along with a couple of large grubs and insects, "Now I dunno what ya's all like so I got a little bit of everything. I know ya' like pill bugs Sarah but I couldn't find any o' them, so got some of those crunchy ones instead."

"Don't worry about it," Sarah replied as she, Crash and Eddie grabbed up their own pawfuls of food, "Thanks Mikey."

"Thanks dude," Crash mumbled through a mouthful of plum.

"Hey no problem fellas," said Mikey, "I finished up ya' little snow things by the way, so if you wanna' hang around here for bit feel free. Manny's puttin' the final touches on the playground right now so it should be all done by the time you get back."

At that moment Sarah had never wanted more than to just leap forward and give Mikey a great big thank you hug, but unfortunately she was sitting on the opposite side of the picnic and she didn't feel like getting food all through her fur. Instead she just gave him a big smile and a thumbs up as she reached down and grabbed a rather succulent grub from the food pile.

"Hey Mike," said Crash, "My bro and I have been wondering, what's with the accent dude? You come from the other side of the world or something?"

"Hmmph?" Mikey looked up with a mouthful of fruit and bugs which he swallowed before he continued, "Not quite that far but it was heck of a trip I can tell you, well worth every second though."

"Why the heck would you wanna go all that way?" Eddie asked.

He shrugged, "No idea to be honest. I was never all that big on travel, but when my mum passed on I guess I had no reason to stay where I was. It was just me and the big wide world. Bucko was always goin' on about how much he'd like to see it all, 'bout all the adventure, the possibilities, always whining that he wished he had more time, didn't actually think we'd go anywhere mind but, well, look at me now." Mikey said with an absent smile.

"What happened to Buck?" Crash asked.

"Yeah, if you were such good friends why aren't you still together now? Where'd he go?" asked Eddie.

"Well a fair few seasons ago we got into some trouble, really big trouble and all I know is I'm still here and he's not."

"What happened?" asked Crash.

"You know there are some things a fella' just doesn't wanna talk about," the glider answered.

"Is he the one you said got killed in some kind of rock slide?" Sarah asked, to which Mikey responded with a solemn nod.

Crash and Eddie looked at each other as they shared a knowing grin before turning back to Mikey, and Sarah had a sneaking suspicion she already knew what they were about to say.

"Hey Mike," Crash began, "What if we told you we'd seen Buck about two seasons ago."

"Yeah, he's living with the dinosaurs in a giant cavern beneath the Ice Fields," Eddie added eagerly, prompting Sarah to smack her paw to her face in disbelief that he'd actually been stupid enough to add that mushroom dream.

Fortunately Mikey remained calm and continued to smile as he always did while grabbing a few cherries for himself, seemingly rather entertained by Crash and Eddie's little anecdote.

"You heard about that big mommy dinosaur right?" Eddie asked, to which Mikey responded with a nod, "Well when she took Sid down into the underground, we went down to get him back, but we ran into a lot of trouble down there."

"Yeah, dinosaurs, plant monsters, all kinds of nasty stuff," Crash elaborated, "But there was this awesome jungle weasel who helped us out a whole heap, and he said his name was Buck."

To be honest Sarah wasn't having any of this B.S. Dinosaurs and plant monsters, really? But looking toward Mikey she was immensely surprised to see him listening quite intently without even the smallest hint of disbelief on his face. That's not to say he seemed to possess any particularly profound understanding of what the heck Crash and Eddie were talking about, but he was certainly giving their story a fair degree of credence.

"I don't recall sayin' anythin' about my mate being a crazy jungle weasel so I don't know where you boys got that one from," Mikey remarked thoughtfully."I appreciate the story mind you, but perhaps you'd best be stuffing them flobber-chops of yours and gettin' back to ya' game coz Ellie's comin' back this afternoon and Manny wants ya's all to be there for the, uh, 'grand opening'."

"Wait a second," Eddie exclaimed suddenly, "What are you guys gonna do once all the work's done. You don't have to hang around with us anymore."

Sarah stared at them. To be honest she hadn't actually thought of that, but she could see no reason why she shouldn't stay in touch just because she didn't have to anymore. This herd represented the only animals she knew here and if she lost them she'd be back to square one.

"Don't worry about it," she replied, "I'll still hang out with you guys. Just coz I don't have to doesn't mean I don't want to, and without all the work we can have twice the fun!"

"Awesome!" the two brothers cried in unison, as Mikey chuckled a little knowingly.

"Hey Sarah, you up for a snowball war?" Crash asked.

"I am now!" Sarah exclaimed happily, leaping to her feet before immediately falling back onto her rump again as her entire stomach suddenly attempted to explode out of her mouth, "Okay, not now, but soon." She gave them both a menacing glare, "Real soon."


	4. Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings

It was late afternoon again once again and Sarah sat in the tree fork sucking on some rather tasty lemon grass as she watched sun go down. Today hadn't exactly been a good day for her. After her recent week of daylight activity, she was finding it excruciatingly difficult to get back to her usual nocturnal sleeping habits and the restlessness of the season wasn't helping things. It was now well and truly mid-spring and her hormones had sky-rocketed with the arrival of her annual heat so she'd decided, in the interests of keeping to her vow of abstinence, that it would be best to stay away from any temptations of the masculine nature. This of course meant keeping well away from the possum twins, Crash and Eddie. It wasn't that she didn't trust them, despite their occasional displays of outright crass stupidity, they were basically nice guys. It was really more to the point that she didn't trust herself around them.

This wasn't the first time she'd tried to have a high and dry season, but at almost a week and a half it was certainly the most successful attempt yet. Then again her previous best of three days wasn't exactly the hardest record to break.

Right about now she could see exactly what that porcupine had been talking about; she was so hard-up that she was actually starting to fantasize about taking Mikey around the hill and jumping him by surprise.

Sighing deeply, Sarah rolled the lemon grass over to the other side of her mouth. Why the hell was she even doing this? She knew perfectly well how to have a bit of fun with the guys and not wind up with any lasting, whining, crying, babbling baggage.

"Good evening," a distinctly feminine voice suddenly greeted from somewhere in the tree above her.

Sarah screamed in surprise as she slid right out of the tree fork and landed face first in the snow below, which thankfully served to muffle the stream of cursing that she let loose before pulling her head from the snow with a miserable groan and getting shakily to her feet.

"A little forewarning would be nice!" Sarah called irritably to the stranger in the tree, "Jackass!"

"While I do find your evident frustration highly understandable," the voice came again with a curious upper class English accent, "I'm afraid you will find that your injuries are of your own doing."

"I don't care what you find highly understandable," Sarah exclaimed as she squinted back up into the branches above. However she still could not make out the source of the voice she was hearing, "What the hell are you doing in my tree!"

"This tree is yours now is it?" the voice asked, "A curious claim to make. I never considered possums a territorial mammal."

Suddenly a rustling sound began emanating from somewhere in the tree above before a frighteningly large bird fluttered down to the ground beside Sarah who immediately began to stammer in terror at what she saw, "You-your-a-a-a-ahhhhh." Sarah's legs collapsed beneath her and she fell to the ground just as good as dead.

"Oh for heaven's sake!" the hawk exclaimed, "Unless you've just suffered a fatal brain aneurism, for dignity's sake could you please return to your feet. If I was going to kill you I would not have bothered to offer courtesy beforehand."

Despite her inherent reservations about showing any sign of life in the presence of an apex predator Sarah very tentatively opened her eyes. The hawk was right after all, it was already abundantly clear that playing dead at such a late stage in the game was utterly useless.

"W-what do you want?" Sarah stammered nervously.

"Nothing from you my dear," the hawk replied, "Please excuse my wholly unintentional violation of you residence, I'm afraid I had you confused with someone else. It's just that I have some rather urgent news to deliver to a certain animal and my inquiries with the other denizens of this area have lead me to believe that he abides somewhere within this snowfield."

"Who?" asked Sarah.

The hawk stared at her for a few moments appearing to size her up with her fiery amber eyes before answering with a surprisingly cordial tone of voice, "I'm looking for a certain possum named Edward; he has dark brown eyes and a rather distinctive brown line down the centre of his muzzle. If memory serves he possesses a rather charming disposition, although this may have changed since last I saw him, it has been quite some time."

"How long since?" Sarah asked, as she very shakily pulled herself to her feet, making sure to keep her eyes glued to the white breasted hawk that loomed beside her, making sure to take special notice of those great grey wings and razor-sharp talons that threatened to snatch her up at any moment and carry her off for lunch.

The hawk sighed, "Many years ago."

'_Gee, that's so helpful,'_ Sarah thought but didn't dare say choosing instead to ask, "And you think he's somewhere around here?"

"As I have already mentioned." the hawk replied a little irritably, "Perhaps you'd know him by his more popular moniker, Eddie."

"Eddie?" Sarah exclaimed suddenly and without really thinking it through. What the heck could the hawk possibly want with him?

"You know him?"

"Uh," Sarah stammered. To be honest she wasn't sure whether to answer truthfully or not. In her experience most predators didn't get to know their prey by name unless they harbored some kind of murderous vendetta against them. Yet this hawk seemed more concerned than enraged, a very strange state of mind for a person with hot-blooded murder on the brain. Still it probably wouldn't hurt to err on the side of caution. "No I don't know him."

"Oh, very well then, I shan't bother you any longer," the hawk replied in disappointment as she turned away before spreading her wings and soaring away into the rapidly darkening sky.

'_What the heck was that about?'_ Sarah thought quietly while brushing the snow from her fur.

Of all the stories that Crash and Eddie had shared with her last week, how had they managed to leave out the one with a close encounter of the hawk kind in it? Perhaps they'd forgotten it amongst all the other weird crap that herd had gotten themselves into, she certainly wouldn't blame them if they had.

Sarah breathed a sigh of jealousy; man if only her life was that interesting. The craziest thing that had ever happened in her family was when her older brother came out to the entire family over dinner. It was sure as hell no underground dinotopia, but roughly on par with waking up after the earthquake, surrounded by strangers and speaking in tongues in terms of uncomfortable moments.

Ah the heck with it, what was the harm in catching up with the herd? She might as well drop by to say hello and good night, if only to let them know she was still alive.

Sarah dropped to all fours and started toward the northern side of the hill at a brisk pace. To be honest this whole celibacy thing was getting old anyway, hell if one thing should lead to another and she wound up in a tree with some handsome stranger she ran into along the way, then so be it. If being a total loner was the price of keeping a clean season she didn't want anything more to do with it, especially when it kept her from hanging with the only animals she actually knew around here.

The journey over to the creek wasn't a particularly exciting one, just the usual snow laden pines and dead wood. A few bird calls every now and then but nothing out of the ordinary, as usual. Maybe she should have told that hawk the truth, if only to find out just what the hell she was on about. If it had anything to do with the recent seismic disturbances, Sarah was all ears.

Giving the air a quick sniff as she approached the tell tail trickling sound of the creek, Sarah was only too pleased to catch the scent of wood smoke on the air. There was only one animal she knew who could be bothered to get one going themselves, and that was Sid the sloth. Evidently the herd must have just chosen a place to settle down for the night, apparently in the warm orange glow of a campfire. As she reached the opposite bank of the stream it didn't take her long to spot the telltale flicker of yellow emanating from a clearing nearby.

"Sup guys," she announced happily as she strolled into the light of the small fire, around which the herd was huddled.

"Hiya!" greeted the yellow-green pelted sloth she'd come to know as Sid, who was currently lazing back next to the fire, "Where've you been? We haven't seen you in days."

"Nothing spesh," Sarah replied with shrug.

"Then what brings our prodigal possum back to us this evening?" Ellie asked quietly from her position on the far side of the clearing, lying on her stomach next to Manny with their ever endearing baby daughter Peaches nestled snuggly between them.

"Not much, just thought I'd drop by to say hi before you sun lovers hit the sack," Sarah replied.

"If you're looking for Crash and Eddie, that Mikey guy took them up to the lake to do some night fishing," said Manny, "They didn't say when they'd be back though. If you find them could you tell them to get back some time before midnight, Peaches doesn't like it when the herd's apart for too long."

"I can imagine," Sarah mused, as she walked over to get a closer look at the bleary-eyed little fur ball, "If only possum babies were this adorable."

"Why? What are they like?" asked Sid.

"Dunno," Sarah replied looking up from the little orange ball of fuzz, "But my mom told me it was like having a having a bunch of tiny, naked mole-rats crawling around in her fur for a day."

"Sounds lovely," Manny remarked, "If you weren't glad you're mammoth before I bet you are now, hey Ellie?" The she-mammoth rolled her eyes, grumbling incoherently as she settled down to sleep. "You see, she would be laughing but she hasn't been her best lately, what with number two on the way."

"What? One not enough for you?" Sarah asked jokingly.

"I couldn't keep her off me," Manny replied with a wink, and Sarah's smile immediately fell away as the tingly excitement was replaced by mild nausea.

"Hey I thought possum's lived in their mom's pouch when they were born?" said Sid.

"They do," Sarah replied, "There's the birthday first and then a pouchday three months later when we climb out."

"Wow, like two birthday parties," Sid commented excitedly.

"I guess you could say that." Sarah replied, "Hey, what's the deal with night fishing? I thought the lake was frozen over all year round."

"It is," Manny replied, "But the ice thins out in spring. You can knock a hole right through if you've got something heavy enough, and use that to fish for all kinds of things."

"Ricky caught a shark there once," Sid added, to which Manny replied with an irritated groan.

"Ricky was lying," he remarked.

"Where'd he get the shark bones then Manny?" Sid pointed out smugly.

"They could have been from anything," Manny answered, "Except you unfortunately."

Deciding it was more in line with her better judgment, Sarah chose to watch the argument that followed from the sidelines. Geez, if this was what it was like with just the two of them she couldn't imagine what it must have been like with that tiger around. Maybe he mediated the tension, trying his best to break it apart before things could escalate. Then again maybe he exacerbated it. Either way it would certainly have been nice to have him around a bit more. He was the only herd member Sarah hadn't had the chance to get to know at all during her recent period as a temporary herd member, which was a real shame because she'd always wanted to meet a saber-toothed tiger.

"What's eatin' them?"

Sarah jumped with surprise for the second time that day; only this time the mysterious stranger possessed a voice that was definitely masculine in tone and thankfully familiar in source, but still no less spine tingling to hear it originating only millimeters from her right ear.

Still a little shaken, and more than a little annoyed, Sarah turned to face the deep orange furred saber named Diego, who was watching the argument between Sid and Manny with a grin of mild amusement.

"Something to do with fish," Sarah replied angrily, "You really know how to make an entrance don't you!"

The tiger chuckled, "I do my best." He looked back at the two squabbling mammals, "This isn't about the shark is it?"

"It sure as hell is," said Sarah.

"I told him those bones weren't even from a fish, they were far too hard. Fish bones are soft like fresh twigs." Diego replied, "They're gonna wake up the kid at this rate."

"Well why don't you do something?" asked Sarah.

"Nah, you gotta let those two fight it out themselves. Try to stop 'em and you'll only get roped in," he answered before giving a deep yawn and plodding over to an empty corner of the clearing where he lay down.

"You been out hunting or something?" Sarah asked, as she followed the tiger over to his corner of the clearing.

"Sort of," Diego answered plainly, "I don't wanna talk about it. Why are you even here anyway? Did you get sick of having Ellie's brothers sniffing around you all day?"

"Um no, they've gone fishing with Mikey at the lake."

Diego looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "Really? I was just up at the lake and I didn't see anyone there, I didn't even smell any recent tracks."

"What!" Sarah exclaimed, "Then where the heck are they?"

"Beats me," answered Diego, "Why don't you ask Manny once he's done with Sid. I've had a really long and kinda disappointing day and I'd really like to get some sleep for tomorrow."

"But what could they be doing?" Sarah asked.

"It's midseason, it's nightfall and all the local females are at the peak of their heat, if they're not fishing what do you _think_ they're doing?" Diego finally replied before lowering his head to the ground and closing his eyes.

Sarah scoffed as she moved away from the tiger and started toward the edge of the clearing; of course they were. What else would they be doing? And perhaps more importantly why did she care? Oh God she didn't actually like them did she?

Sarah sighed as she came to the bank of the creek and prepared to hop across to the other side. Of course she did, there was no denying the way she'd yearned for their company over the last few days. Now they were actually checking out the hot selection for this season and she'd gone and opted herself out on purpose.

'_Way to blow it Sarah._' She thought angrily to herself once she reached the opposite bank and had started the long trek back up the hill, _'Of course they'd go looking for someone else. You told them you weren't interested, what did you expect? They're nice guys but if you leave it too long they're gonna bail sometime. God I'm such I'm idiot!'_

Sarah began making a bee line for her tree. Sure the night had barely started but there was no point being out and about now if there was nothing to do. Besides she didn't exactly feel like wandering around the hill alone again, that was never fun, even when she was in a good mood. Of course it probably would have helped to have been looking where she was going instead of walking headlong into tree, which she unfortunately did with a loud thwack before stumbling backwards and falling into the snow.

Coughing and spluttering as she sat up, Sarah began swearing profusely at no one in particular and she grabbed onto her aching nose. She immediately felt the warm trickle of blood as it began dribbling out of her left nostril and her eyes watered with pain and frustration. Day after crappy day, this really was turning out to be one hell of spring season.

"Uh you may wanna put some ice on that," a young adolescent voice suggested from somewhere nearby.

By this point Sarah was fast running out of tolerance for unwelcome surprises so if this turned out to be some random horny male who thought he had an easy target in his sights she was going to make his night a living hell.

"Oh, Sarah, it's you! How the heck did you do that?" exclaimed the voice she now realized with enormous relief belonged to Crash. She felt his warm furry body brush against hers as he knelt down beside her and pulled her paw away from her nose before hastily replacing it with a pawful of fresh snow.

"Nice face-plant there babe, you didn't see the tree?" He paused looking intently at her muzzle for a few moments. "It's just a ding, you'll be alright. Just keep the ice on it for a while and it should heal up fine."

"Thanks," said Sarah.

"No problem," Crash replied with a chuckle, "Why were you playing chicken with a tree? If you're that bored why don't you hang with us? I got tons of better ways to hurt yourself. They're all pretty painful but way more fun."

"I wasn't trying to do that, I was just… distracted," Sarah protested.

Crash grinned, "Whatever, still funny as hell when it happened."

"You tell anyone I'll kill you!" Sarah replied.

"Don't need to, you're gonna have one killer bruise in the morning. They won't see it but you'll damn sure feel it," Crash remarked as he sat down in the snow next to her while still holding the snow on her nose.

Sarah groaned, '_Forget tomorrow, it's bad enough now'_.

"Hey where's Eddie?" she asked as she became aware of the other brother's absence.

"He's still down at the lake with Mike," Crash answered, "We were using the ice holes to try some night fishing."

"But Deigo said you weren't at the lake," Sarah exclaimed.

"There's lots of lakes around here, which one did you ask him about?"

"I just said you were down at the lake fishing and he said he hadn't seen you there."

"Oh _that_ lake, no, Mikey took us to a different one further downstream. He said it's better because the creek kinda pockets out there and heaps of fish get trapped in the current during the outflow." Crash replied with a shrug, "Didn't understand any of it myself. All I know is I think it was the most boring half-hour of my entire life and that Mikey guy really needs a girlfriend."

Sarah giggled, "No argument there."

"What did Diego tell you?"

"Uh… erm, well…" Sarah stammered for a few moments wondering exactly how to put it to Crash that she'd basically flown completely off the handle because Diego had told her that he and his brother had gone out trawling for tail, "He said that if you weren't fishing, you'd probably gone out looking for girls."

"Why'd we go looking for girls when we've got an awesome one right here?" Crash asked, before his eyes suddenly widened in a moment of realization, "He thought we were trying to get lucky didn't he?"

"Kinda yeah," Sarah admitted with a sheepish simper.

"Awesome!" Crash exclaimed happily as he very gently removed the pawful of snow from Sarah's nose, "Whatever you do don't tell the tiger we were fishing, I just got the best idea for tomorrow."

"What?"

"We'll pretend we did get lucky, it'll annoy the crap out of him, just you watch."

For a few seconds Sarah started to weigh out a few ideas in her head. On the one paw there was her little pledge, which up until now had led to her longest and most painful dry streak ever. On the other paw there was the potential ramifications on what was fast growing into a bourgeoning friendship with two of the nicest, albeit, slightly dimwitted males she'd ever met.

"Why pretend," she asked a little nervously.

"Eh?" Crash asked, "What'd you mean?"

'_Screw it you only live once!' _she thought before crying, "Come here you snub-nosed idiot!"

She wrapped both her arms around Crash, forcing him backwards into the snow with a muffled yelp of surprise.

* * *

The next morning, just as the first rays of sunlight were peaking over the horizon to signal the crack of dawn, Sarah knelt by the creek with a contented smile while splashing her face with several pawfuls of fresh, cool water before standing up again and making her way back to the clearing where most of the other herd members were only just starting to wake up.

"Morning all," she called cheerily, as she scampered over to a medium sized birch tree that grew just on the edge of the clearing, but most of the others were either too busy or still too asleep to answer.

Crash was already waiting bleary eyed, at the base of the tree, and as she approached Sarah gave him a quick good morning peck on the cheek before she handed him one of the three apples she was carrying and plonked down onto her rump beside him.

"Morning babe," Crash greeted, gently kissing the top of her head as she rested it against his shoulder, before taking a bite out of his apple.

"Where's Eddie?" she asked.

"He had to go pee," Crash answered through his mouthful of apple.

"Oh, good," said Sarah, "Coz I wanna talk about what happened last night."

"What about it?" he asked.

"Well, it's just that," Sarah paused for a moment trying to think exactly what to say, "It's not that I don't like you or anything. In fact I think you're a real nice guy and I'm willing to bet you're gonna make a real good mate for someone someday, just, not with me. I mean, last night was fun no doubt about it, but I'm just not ready for anything long term. Now I'm fine if you wanna keep this thing going between us but you've just gotta remember that this girl aint for keeps okay? When the season's over this is over too, sorry, but that's just how I do things."

Crash sat silently for a few moments, and Sarah was forced to endure what felt like an eternity of apple flesh crunching in her ears before he finally swallowed his mouthful and replied, "You're joking right?"

Sarah groaned, she was afraid of this, "No I'm not, and if you're not gonna be okay with it then tough termites."

To her immense surprise Crash actually started chuckling, "Hey I'm cool with the whole buds with perks things, but I was kinda thinkin' we could leave it at a one-nighter."

"Why?" she asked, pulling her head off his shoulder to look him in the eyes.

"I dunno if you noticed, but ever since you fell out of that tree my bro Eddie's been crushing on you like crazy," he replied, "Whenever you're not around he's always going on and on about how much he likes you, how he can't stop thinking about you. I didn't wanna say anything about it coz he's my bro and I just figured he'd go for it when he was ready. But then you went and disappeared and he started getting all mopey. He really started bringing me down so I asked Mikey to help us do some fishing down by the lake and-" he paused as he suddenly started looking over Sarah's shoulder and when she turned her head to see who it was, she was instantly filled with both a mixture incredible guilt and embarrassment.

"'Sup guys," Eddie called happily as he walked over to them, "That one for me?"

He indicated the one remaining apple in Sarah's right paw, which she was quick to offer him while simultaneously attempting to avoid any and all eye contact.

"Thanks," he continued, grabbing the apple and settling down just opposite his brother, "Hey Sarah, me and Crash were thinking about checking out some of the caves over by the Twisted Mound coz Russell says he found a dinosaur bone in of 'em yesterday. You wanna come with?"

Sarah glanced over toward Crash who gave her a rather eager nod of encouragement.

"Sure thing," she replied, "What're the rest of the herd gonna do today?"

"Beats me," said Eddie, "They'll just do what they always do, I guess."

"Do you mind if Mikey tags along?" Sarah asked tentatively.

"I already asked him," the twin answered, "He said he's gonna meet us there."

"Is he bringing lunch?" asked Crash.

"Dunno, probably," his brother replied.

"When do you wanna get going then?" Crash asked, as he popped the rest of his apple core into his mouth and began spitting the seeds across the clearing.

"Soon I guess, but we gotta say bye to Peaches first," said Eddie, "You got anything to take care of Sarah?"

'_Not really,' _was the first thought that went through her head but the tension she felt sitting between these two, knowing what she and Crash had done behind Eddie's back, was almost unbearable.

"Well I kinda need a bath," she answered, as she got up and started walking away from the two brothers, in the direction of the creek, "And I guess I should say hi to the rest of herd while I'm here."

"Hey, no problem." Eddie called, "Just don't take too long okay?"

Truth be told, the last thing Sarah needed was a bath, but then she was willing to say anything to get out of that crushing death-coffin of a situation. This seriously must have been the fastest she'd gone from waking up to finding out just how badly that fling last night was going to come back and bite her in the ass.

Now she remembered the real reason she'd sworn off males. No matter who it was Sarah always somehow managed to screw things up either just for them or her _and_ them. It didn't matter how hard she tried to hide it, Eddie was damn sure going to find out eventually and when he did everything was virtually guaranteed to go down the drain pretty damn quick. It was like being miss professional love destroyer of the year, every single year of her life.

"Hey Sarah," said Ellie, as she passed by gloomily, "What's eatin' you?"

Sarah stopped and sighed, "You ever have the feeling that the whole world would be just plain better off without you?"

"Depends," Ellie replied, "If you mean recently then no I haven't, but if you mean in my entire life then my answer would be about ten thousand times."

"Like…?" Sarah asked.

"Gee, how long have you got?" Ellie replied with an amused smile.

"Well I was just gonna go and drown myself in the creek, but I guess that can wait," Sarah answered.

"Crash and Eddie givin' you a hard time?" said Ellie.

Sarah scoffed, "Far from it. I just found out Eddie's got a massive crush on me."

"And what's so bad about that?" asked Ellie, "I mean apart from Eddie."

"Well," Sarah bit her lip, "I kinda, sorta, slept with Crash last night."

"Ooh," Ellie exclaimed before having a small a laugh, "No biggie, Crash's been stealing Eddie's girlfriends since they were fifteen, it's like a game of pass-it-on with those two. The most he'll do is put the beat-down on Crash, and then they just won't talk to each other for a while."

"What happens after that?" Sarah asked.

"I dunno," Ellie replied, "You just kinda wake up one day and suddenly everything's alright again; it's a twin thing."

"How long does that normally take?"

"Two or three weeks depending on how much he likes you," answered Ellie, "The longest was about three months, but that was only because Eddie knocked Crash off a really big pine tree and he got face-planted on an armadillo shell." She suddenly shivered at that particular thought. "That was pretty nasty; it's how he got that weird nose crinkle."

"Ouch," said Sarah, and Ellie nodded in agreement, "Hey, where's Manny?"

"Oh he's just gone to get some peaches for, uh, Peaches. We're starting her on solid food now, but Manny doesn't wanna start her on anything too tough like bananas or oranges."

"Sounds positively peachy," Sarah commented with a giggle.

"Don't you start," Ellie warned, "It was hard enough trying to get those two to shut-up about it."

She pointed to Crash and Eddie with her trunk. At that moment the two of them appeared to be having a seed spitting contest, and from the forlorn look on Crash's face Eddie was definitely winning.

"Hey you picked the name," Sarah pointed out.

Ellie rolled her eyes, "It was a spur the moment thing. You had to be there to understand."

"You know, actually I think I do," said Sarah as she thought back to last nights spontaneous little incident.

"Trust me," Ellie said with a smile as she began getting to her feet, "You don't."

Sarah watched as Ellie plodded her way out of the clearing in the direction of the creek, most likely with the intention of meeting up with Manny for a nice family breakfast with their daughter. At least there seemed to be someone around here she could count on for a pick-me-up.

Lacking anything else to do Sarah decided to head back over to the tree where Crash and Eddie were talking with Diego and Sid.

"Hey guys the babe is back," Sarah announced with feigned enthusiasm as she approached, "We going soon or what?"

"Ooh going where?" Sid asked.

"The Twisted Mound," Crash answered, "We just told you."

"Yeah but you didn't say anything about Sarah," the sloth pointed out.

"Why, you got a problem?" asked Eddie.

Sid just gave a silly grin and shook his head, "Nup."

"I sure do," said Diego, "I'm not walking twenty-three miles with _three _possums on my back."

"Are you saying I'm fat!" Sarah exclaimed.

The tiger's ears immediately drooped in embarrassment, "No I… I just…"

"Boy she got you by the short ones, eh Diego," Sid quipped, to which Diego responded with a deep growl as he shot a dangerous glare in the sloth's direction.

"C'mon man, you're a big tough tiger aren't you?" Crash asked, "Sure you can't handle just one more itty-bitty possum?"

Diego stared at Sarah for a few moments before he grumbled a reply, "I'll give it a shot."

"See, that's what I'm talkin' about. Gimme some paw bro," Crash said offering out his paw for a low four, which Diego promptly ignored.

"Everyone who's commin' climb aboard," the tiger announced.

Although Crash moved immediately to climb up he wound up falling into the snow as he was tripped by Eddie's outstretched foot.

"Ladies first," said his brother, indicating for Sarah to climb onto Diego's back, which she did, taking a position just behind the tiger's neck.

"Don't worry Diego," she whispered into his left ear, "If you get tired just flick your ears and I'll hop off and walk okay?"

"I don't think I'll have a problem," Diego assured her quietly as the other two twins scurried up onto his back, "C'mon Sid, let's get going."

With that the five mammals set off up the snow drift and onto the neighboring plains heading toward a small cluster of white coated inclines that sat against the horizon, which Sarah assumed to be their destination.

The journey over wasn't bad. A little boring, but they all managed to entertain themselves by keeping up the chatter. All of them except Diego of course, who remained silent for most of the trek save for the occasional request for one of the possum brothers to please stop stabbing their claws into his side and yelling mush or yah.

In total it took all of about three hours of constant hiking for the group to reach the hill covered cluster, after which Diego was pretty well and truly wiped. Even though he never admitted to his fatigue, Sarah could tell from his increasingly labored breathing that by the end of the trip the tiger was fast nearing the end of his rope.

"Hey guys," a familiar voice of called as they all leapt off Diego's back and both he and Sid proceeded to head off on their own separate errands, apparently not all that enticed by the prospect of dino bones. Sarah quickly noticed that it belonged to the porcupine girl she'd played hockey against last week, "Sarah! I was hoping you'd turn up some time, where've you been?"

Crash laughed, "Where hasn't she been."

"Pfft, yeah right," the porcupine exclaimed with a disbelieving eye roll, "You haven't have you Sarah?"

"Huh, course not," Sarah replied as the porcupine's little brother, Russell, approached.

"Damn," Russell exclaimed as he handed her something Sarah wasn't able to glimpse "Here ya' go Trace."

"So what, you been around the snow much?" asked Eddie.

"More than you I'm sure," Tracey replied with a wink in Sarah's direction.

"Wanna bet?" Eddie replied, which prompted Russell to suddenly start paying attention again.

"It doesn't count if you're by yourself," she pointed, and Eddie's ears drooped with embarrassment as both Russell and Crash started sniggering.

"She's got you there bro," Crash taunted.

As the others continued to jeer the poor possum Sarah couldn't help noticing Eddie's eyes momentarily glance in her direction, which instantly sent a pang of guilt running through her body and at the same time made her feel a just little nervous.

"Hey Russell, you said something about dinosaur bones?" said Crash.

"Sure did," the porcupine replied happily, "Right this way. You don't mind caves do you?"

"You kidding? Possums own the dark and spooky," the possum twin exclaimed, as they all started following Russell.

"Could've fooled me," said Tracey.

"Hey, we only walk around during the day because that's when the rest of our herd's awake," said Eddie, "We can see bright and clear in the pitch black. That's right isn't it Sarah?"

"Sure can," she answered in agreement.

"Yeah but aren't you still colorblind at night?" Russell asked.

"I can see red and green," Crash said proudly.

"What about you guys?" asked Tracey.

"Well I can only see in Black and white," Sarah admitted.

"Same here," said Eddie, "But it's still better than you guys."

"What kinda bone is it Russ?" asked Crash.

"Well… it's not really a bone exactly," Russell replied.

At that moment a strangely familiar scent hit Sarah's nostrils, a scent she knew would have repulsed most animals but rather strangely enticed her with thoughts of food, and from the looks that were shared between all three possums it was pretty obvious they could smell it too. Of course it was actually rather weak at first, but as they drew closer to the source, which was still out of view, the air was very quickly laden with the thickly wafting odor of death and it wasn't just any kind of a death. It smelled very recent, to the degree that the decay would have only just started to foul the flesh of whatever unfortunate creature had met it's demise at most only two or three days ago.

"Aww man," Tracey exclaimed, clamping a paw firmly over her nose, "It's even worse than last time."

"Oh come on, it's not that bad," said Eddie, "I think it smells alright."

"More like tasty," Crash added as he proceeded to take a great sniff of the air, "Man reminds me I haven't eaten any meat in months."

Although she didn't say anything Sarah had to admit she was in the same boat in that regard. As a scavenger, she didn't get much opportunity for meat, especially not ones that smelt this fresh. Repugnant to most maybe, but to a possum fresh carrion was actually quite a rare treat.

Tracy gave them all a strange look, "Geez you guys can be real creeps sometimes."

"Our pleasure," Eddie replied with a playful grin, "You don't mind it do you Sarah?"

"Nup," she answered.

Tracy rolled her eyes, it seemed to be a habit for her, and turned to continue walking level with her brother, the three possums trailing closely behind, until they all finally came to a halt right outside the entrance to large cave that jutted out from side of one of the many large mounds of snow covered rock that surrounded them. Given the direction of the pungent breeze that wafted up from its depths, the smell was almost certainly coming from somewhere just inside, perhaps hidden from sight by mere inches.

"Whoa, geez, mother of… this is as close as I'm getting," Tracey exclaimed, "You couldn't pay me to go in there!"

Russell sniggered, "No one's offering sis."

"Yeah, how about you stand guard out here while we go check it out?" Crash suggested.

"Stand guard?" asked Tracey, "From what, Vultures and rats? Seriously, who the heck's gonna come within a mile of this place?"

"Rats and vultures," Eddie replied.

"Yeah, we don't want 'em ruining our dinosaur before we get a go at it," added Crash.

"And you hang around with these guys?" Tracey asked, her question clearly leveled at Sarah.

"Certainly seems so," Sarah answered, "So are we going in or what?"

"Don't need to, I saw more than I wanted to the other day," said Russell, "You guys go ahead though. It's just around the bend to the right. Just make sure that whatever you do, if you start to hear a weird rushing sound coming down the tunnel, run like hell."

"Why's that?" Sarah asked, now suddenly very nervous.

Russell adopted an extremely serious tone, "Coz that wind blast is hotter the sun itself, I swear you'll be roasted alive in two seconds flat.

"How do you know?" Crash asked.

"That's how jumbo snuffed it, just one look at it'll tell you trust me."

Sarah shared a last anxious look with Crash and Eddie before they all took a tentative step forward and slowly moved toward the cave entrance. As they walked in beneath the jagged archway that lead inside, Sarah's skin began to tingle as the air around her suddenly went from cold but tolerable to a sweltering midsummer at the equator. Stuff the super heated wind, it was hotter than hell in here already, and the pungent, cloying aroma of rotting flesh was rapidly overtaken by the overpowering stench of what could only be described as the foulest bunch of rotten eggs on Earth.

"Whoa!" the twins exclaimed in unison as they all turned the corner and even in the crushing darkness it didn't take long for Sarah to spot what had spurred their awe.

Before her lay the single weirdest looking, hopefully dead, thing she had ever laid eyes on. Perhaps the easiest way to equate it to anything she'd ever seen before in her lifetime was to say it looked a bit like a giant, half-plucked chicken with scales, or skin. Normally she would have blamed the bizarreness of its appearance on advanced decomposition, but it looked as if decay hadn't even set in at all yet. Most of the body was in relatively good condition. The feathers on its scrawny forelimbs were more or less intact, the skin still had yet to retreat from the base of its talon-like toe-claws, and the birdlike eyes although lifeless and empty, still bore the familiar sharpness of several birds of prey. Except of course this thing wasn't a bird, it was lizard, a lizard that in life could have stood at about roughly the size of a marginally oversized turkey.

To be perfectly honest Sarah was pretty darn glad it was dead in a cave rather than prowling around the snowfield, those teeth would bring a quick and grizzly end to anything and Sarah knew of only a few creatures that stood a chance of escaping a creature with legs like this things.

"Well, you guys are the resident dinotopians," Sarah began, "Care to, erm, identify this specimen for us?"

Crash and Eddie both shared an extremely confused look.

"Beats the heck out of me," Eddie answered.

"Eddie's right Sarah, I don't think I ever saw any of these things down there," said Crash.

"Good thing too," Eddie added, "Wouldn't wanna see Diego try to go toe to toe with this guy."

"Maybe if Buck was here," said Crash, "He might know what it is."

Again with that Buck guy? For Sarah it was embarrassing enough that they'd actually shown the audacity to have asked Mikey about him on the presumption that he might be some friend he claimed to have lost over an argument several years ago. But now looking at this… thing, she was actually starting to see where these guys were coming from. Who knows, maybe Buck was a real person after all.

"Hey look there's more of 'em," said Eddie, pointing further down the tunnel where Sarah could easily make out the silhouettes of many more dead bird-lizards, "You think this tunnel leads all the way down into the underground?"

"I don't know and if there's anymore of these things down there, I don't wanna know," Sarah replied, "C'mon you guys, I've seen enough. Besides the fumes in here are making me dizzy."

"No arguments here, let's get going Eddie. I could really go for some fresh air right about now," Crash said as he turned and joined Sarah as they both started walking back down to the entrance.

"Gee, I hope Buck's alright," Eddie said as he caught up with Crash and Sarah, "Something must be going pretty bad down there if those dinosaurs wanted to come up here."

"Maybe they just got curious," suggested Sarah.

"Well whatever they were doing, they're dead now," said Crash.

A few second later they were all breathing an immense sigh of relief as they walked out of the tunnel, shivering as the temperature around their tiny bodies seemed to plummet suddenly as they stepped squinting into the fresh, cool air of the outside where the two porcupines stood waiting beside the cave entrance.

"So how was it?" asked Tracey.

"Weird," replied Eddie.

"Dude that thing was beyond weird, that was wrong," said Crash.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," said Sarah, although her comment was more to do with the dizzying affects of the fumes inside the tunnel than the sight of the creatures themselves, "Any wonder those things died in there."

"Hey, I warned you," remarked Russell, "Look on the bright side guys. At least you're all in one piece."

"Yeah? Well so are they," Sarah replied with a meaningful nod toward the cave, "And they aren't exactly all that better for it are they?"

Both Russell and Tracey chuckled.

"Well we did warn you," said Tracey.

"You fella's still up for lunch?" Russell asked as the group began to move away from the cave.

"Mike said he might be bringing something for us," said Crash, "But we haven't seen him yet."

"Oh he's already here," Tracey replied, "Got here just a few minutes before you guys did. I don't think he really cared about the cave to be honest, but he seemed to like the view from the mounds."

"Did he have anything with him?" asked Sarah.

"Uh, he had a big round leafy thing over his shoulder," Russell replied.

"Yeah that'd probably be lunch," said Sarah, "Where'd he go?"

Russell shrugged, "Dunno, somewhere around here. Wow, you guys really stink."

"Really?" Crash asked as both he and Eddie took a quick sniff of their coats, "Damn cave!"

Sarah gave herself a brief sniff and noticed very quickly that she reeked of those utterly repugnant fumes from inside the cave. Man if she hadn't needed a bath this morning she sure needed one now.

"Hey is that your glider up on the hill over there?" Tracey asked, indicating a small black, furry mammal standing atop one of the hills. Sarah nodded, that was Mikey alright, she'd know those furry, ankle length skin flaps anywhere.

The group quickly made there way over to the bottom of the hills and began to climb up toward the glider, who was incidentally staring in the complete opposite direction, but he began to sniff and then gag in revulsion as they drew near him.

"Nice to see you too Mikey," said Sarah.

"Well do excuse my french love," the glider replied as he turned to face the approaching mammals, "But which of you fella's decided it'd be okay to cut some cheese."

"Oh it's them," Trace said with a nod toward the possums, "They went into the cave and wound up smelling like week old dung."

Mikey laughed, "I thought so, how long were ya' in there?"

"Only a few minutes," Eddie replied a little groggily.

"Huh, betcha feelin' a might bit dizzy now though," he remarked, admittedly very correctly, "Bet it was pretty damn hot in there too, and it probably smelled like the nastiest bunch of off eggs you've ever caught a whiff of."

"How the heck do you know?" asked Crash.

"Coz that cave is a bloody volcanic vent," Mikey replied. "You fella's might wanna lie down and try some deep breathin' before ya' pass out. There's all kinds of nasty gases and stuff in there."

Sarah heard a single furry thump behind her and she turned to see Eddie lying unconscious in the snow with his eyes still half-open and his tongue lolling out of his mouth in a very comical fashion.

"Heh heh, too late," Mikey quipped with a chuckle, "If there's one thing I know it's never to go wanderin' around inside a volcano, coz if the heat don't gethcha those ruddy fumes sure will."

"You could've told us Ru-Russooooll," Crash began before his eyes suddenly started to roll up into his head and fell backward into the snow next to his brother.

Both Russell and Tracy started laughing.

"Hey I didn't know," the male porcupine replied.

"Well?" Mikey asked as he turned to Sarah, "You might wanna lie down now before you wind up on your back with 'em."

"Eh, what?" Sarah asked. She had become a little preoccupied with the little spots of colour that were starting to multiply throughout her vision and the world around her suddenly began to spin at an increasing rate.

Having a good idea of what was coming she quickly lay down on the ground as per Mikey's advice, closed her eyes and starting to take big, deep breaths.

"Are they gonna be alright?" she heard Tracey ask.

"Well, more or less. They should come back 'round in a few minutes," Mikey replied, "Just don't make any loud noises okay, coz volcano gases tend to leave you with one mighty headache for ya' trouble."

Luckily after a few minutes of lying still and deep breathing Sarah began to feel the dizziness ebbing away slowly, and after a bit longer she actually started to feel well enough to open her eyes again.

"I trust you're gonna follow old Mikey's advice an' stay well away from all caves of the volcanic nature from now on?" Mikey asked, as Sarah finally sat up and nodded in agreement, "Don't worry too much. Just relax and keep up ya' breathin', it'll keep ya' from getting' too bad a headache."

Sarah just continued to sit and breath as she watched Mikey begin to unfold his leaf sack to reveal yet another smorgasbord of fruits, nuts and grubs. The two porcupines both sat down and grabbed up a few of the fruits that didn't already have something crawling around on them, while Sarah gingerly reached over and picked up a small worm.

"Wow they are really out of it," Tracey commented with a glance in the direction of the two possum twins.

"I wouldn't worry about them 'til they've been out for about an hour," Mikey replied.

"Why then," asked Russell.

"'Cause that means they're dead," the glider answered with an oddly casual air, "Not much you can do but sit around and hope they don't suffocate."

"Suffocate?" Tracey asked nervously.

"Trust me," said Mikey, "You don't want to know the details."


	5. Hark the Hawk

**Crikey, Chapter five at last! Sorry about the wait but the second computer has just died so I have been forced to contend with both my brothers and our parents for all of my precious P.C time, most of which I am ashamed to admit has been wasted away playing a positively delightful little indie game called Gish. Anyway I have once again managed to get my rear in gear long enough to pump out another chapter, which actually had to undergo a serious re-write shortly before its original planned release date about a week ago when my good brother pointed out some glaring character inconsistencies and together we managed to amend my unbelievably foolish decision to fast-track an event that was originally intended to occur far further into the story and thereby completely foil any impact it may have had. Ah well, all's well now so enjoy as always and please don't forget to review.**

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Chapter 5

Hark the Hawk

"Afternoon boys," Mikey remarked teasingly as Crash and Eddie finally began to stir from their near twenty minute comas, "Enjoy ya' little nap?"

"You guys alright?" asked Russell.

"I don't know Russell," Crash grumbled, "But if I hurl it's gonna be all over you."

"Hey I didn't know it was a volcano," Russell replied defensively.

Mikey chuckled, "Baking heat and brimstone's a heck of a big giveaway there mates."

"I take it you guys aint hungry?" Tracy asked with a glance toward the small luncheon Mikey had provided.

Eddie furrowed his brow with a disgusted grimace as his eyes fell on the food, and it was pretty obvious he wasn't very hungry, but Crash's face lit up with glee as he descended upon the lunch pile and began to chow down with great enthusiasm.

"I stand corrected," Tracy mused with a sigh.

"Indeed you do," Mikey quipped before looking toward Eddie, "Not hungry champ?"

"Nah, I'm still feeling a bit goofy from the gas," he replied.

"So now that you fella's have had a peak at the bones, whatcha feel like doing now?" asked Mikey.

Crash shrugged as he answered through a mouthful of pear, "Whaffever ooo ont."

"I guess we could go back to the herd now," Eddie replied. "We don't want Peaches to start missing her uncles."

"I was thinking about another game of ice hockey," said Russell.

"Yeah and this time it'll be full contact, no holds barred." Tracy added, "I haven't had a good hockey punch up in ages."

"No arguments here," Sarah replied giving a playful sneer in Tracy's direction. It was about time she found an equal wrestling opponent.

"Ah, we are unanimous then," Mikey said while getting to his feet. "Best we set off now while the sun's still high."

"Hey don't we need to find the cat and the sloth first?" asked Russell.

"Sid and Diego?" asked Eddie, "Who knows where they are now?"

"Yeah," added Crash, "The way Diego's been these days he's probably across the continent by now."

"And who cares about Sid anyway?" said Eddie.

"I do," Sarah replied indignantly. If anything apart from Crash and Eddie he was the only other herd member she'd actually grown fond of.

"Fine you go find him then," said Crash.

"Crash!" Eddie growled suddenly.

"What, he's just trying to pick up chicks, he'll be fine. Since when do you care anyway bro?" asked Crash as he joined Mikey in trying to re-wrap what was left of the lunch.

Eddie quickly followed to help his brother and Sarah was left alone to watch the two of them arguing quietly over something while they helped Mikey. Perhaps now wasn't exactly the best time to check the guy out but this was the first real chance she'd had to get a good look at Eddie and to be honest what she saw wasn't half bad. Admittedly the face department certainly left something to be desired although she couldn't really get a good view of it from this angle, but the body and coat were okay, his fur was definitely better kempt than his brother's and his tail wasn't all that bad either. Some room for improvement certainly but then Sarah wasn't anything special herself, and if she knew one thing average almost always meant accessible.

"Alright campers, time to move out," Mikey called as he swung the now significantly smaller lunch sack over his shoulder and he began to lead the group back down the hill in a westerly direction.

Sarah sighed as she scurried over to the others and took a place with Tracy and Russell, a couple of feet behind the other three. Thinking about it now though it was entirely possible that Crash had just told her Eddie had a crush on her as an excuse to avoid any actual commitment. Kind of weird considering she had literally straight up told him she didn't expect any, but maybe he thought it was genuinely impossible for a female be in it just for the fun, which if true kind of made him a bit of jackass on reflection. True or not, either way it seemed Crash wasn't really interested in any more rolls in the snow with her even though the peak of the season was only just starting and that really only left her with one option other than having to go out looking for random strangers, a prospect she'd very much like to avoid considering her previous experiences, and that option was Eddie.

Sarah quickly scurried ahead until she was alongside Eddie, who immediately gave her a curious 'what are you doing?' look. Not the best start admittedly but all she needed was a good conversation starter to kick things in the right direction.

"Hey Eddie," she began as she drew back onto her hind legs again.

"Yeah what?" he asked.

"Uh..." Sarah stammered now suddenly realising she didn't actually have any interesting conversation starters to work with, and had left herself floundering like a witless moron.

"You forgot what you were gonna say didn't you?" Eddie said with smile. "Don't sweat it, happens to me all the time."

Sarah breathed a strong sigh of relief, which she hastily moved to cover up by answer, "Y-Yeah I did."

"Was it about the dinosaurs?" he asked.

"Um no..." she replied quickly, racking her brains for something, _anything_ she could conceivably have been thinking about at that moment that in no way suggested what she was actually thinking about at that moment.

"Pill bugs, mothballs, eggs... aardvarks?"

"Crash said you have a massive Crush on me," Sarah suddenly blurted out without thinking; not exactly the subtle conversation hook she'd had mind.

"Oh," Eddie exclaimed with a surprised stare. "When?"

'_Oh just this morning after we spent the night at it like rabbits while you were fishing,'_ Sarah thought unhappily to herself. This just kept getting better and better.

"You know I can't really remember," she replied out loud. Yet another spectacular display of her natural improv skills.

"Oh, okay," said Eddie. "Do you know why?"

"Drunk or something," she answered unconvincingly with a shrug.

To her immense relief Eddie laughed.

"Sounds about right," he remarked cheerfully. "And yeah I guess I like you little bit that way but we're friends aren't we? I mean you said you weren't interested in it."

"He also said you wouldn't stop talking about me, and that you got really down when I stopped seeing you guys," she continued.

"Okay, that first bit was a joke an… oh geez he didn't tell you it did he?"

"Um, no why?"

Eddie's eyes widened if horror as he suddenly seemed to realise he'd just let slip on something he really shouldn't of.

"You were telling dirty jokes about me!" Sarah exclaimed, although she was far more amused than angry.

"Well to be fair we thought you were dead," Eddie replied defensively.

"And what part of you thought that was _good_ thing to say!" Sarah cried out, before she leapt toward him.

"Help she's trying to kill me," Eddie exclaimed playfully, as she attempted in vain to wrestle him into a headlock.

"Hey whoa, whoa what's goin' on here," Mikey suddenly chimed in from nearby.

"She found out about the jokes," the possum twin answered.

The glider immediately burst out into laughter. "Which one? The watermelon or the icicle?"

"What!" Sarah sent a shocked stare in Mikey's direction.

"Hey, we were fishing what else were we gonna talk about, fish?" the glider quipped happily.

"That's it you're next!"

In a couple of seconds the rest of the group wound up joining together in an effort to diffuse the situation, and in just under five minutes the group was back on track with Eddie and Sarah now forced to walk on opposite ends of the group separated by Crash and the two porcupines.

Unfortunately the remainder of the trip back wasn't nearly as exciting. Tracey, Russel, Crash, Eddie and Sarah managed to become engrossed in an intense discussion about ice hockey while Mikey merely walked along in front whistling a merry little tune of his own creation. All in all the journey was certainly a tough trek for the six small mammals. Even with the frequent rest stops every few miles, the entire group was just about ready to die of exhaustion. Of course it didn't help that Mikey actually managed to get them all lost three or four times, at one point forcing the weary group to backtrack several miles, much to Sarah's great surprise and even greater annoyance.

When they finally arrived back in the late-afternoon about six and a half hours later they all pretty much found their own comfortable spots around the clearing and collapsed into the snow, panting desperately for oxygen.

"I'm… gonna… kill… that… glider," Sarah gasped through laboured breaths as she lay in the snow with Crash and Eddie beneath the shade of snowy pine.

"You… and me… both," said Crash.

"So how was the trip?" Ellie asked as she and Manny plodded over to the returning adventurers, "Find anything?"

"Boy did we!" Eddie exclaimed wearily but filled with excitement, "Russel was right. There's a whole bunch of dead dinosaur things just inside one of the caves."

"Were they just like the ones underneath the ice field?" asked Ellie.

"Sorta," replied Crash, "But they were pretty small, with feathers and huge claws on their feet. I don't think we ever saw one of them down there."

"Wow, sounds like you guys made quite a find," said Ellie.

"Wait a second," interjected Manny. "You said they were dead. How do you know they had feathers?"

"Uh coz they still had skin on them," Sarah replied as she sat up in the snow and shuffled around to face the two mammoths.

"Yeah they hadn't been dead very long," Eddie added, "Just enough to make a smell."

"And what a smell," Crash agreed.

"So you're saying those things actually came up here?" Manny asked with more than a hint of concern in his voice.

"Nah, they died in the cave, probably from the heat more than anything else." Eddie answered.

"What heat? What kind of cave were you in?" asked Ellie.

"Uh…" the three possums all shared a look of sudden apprehension. Although Sarah didn't exactly know what was going on at first, it became readily apparent that Crash and Eddie were probably very reluctant to let on to their sister that they'd all just recklessly wandered straight into a volcanic vent.

Thankfully however, it was Manny who spoke next, inadvertently changing the subject and saving his two brothers in law quite a considerable amount of grief from their sister.

"Let me get this straight," the great bull mammoth began, "You three saw a bunch of dead dinosaurs, that haven't actually been dead for very long, up here, on the surface?"

"Not really, they were in a cave ya' know." said Crash.

"It doesn't matter," Manny continued. "Ellie, you do know what this means don't you?"

"Uh, there's a bunch of dead dinos rottin' at the bottom of hole somewhere?" Ellie replied quizzically.

"It means those pre-historic killing machines are actually trying to get up _here_!" Manny exclaimed. "I don't know why and I sure as heck don't wanna find out but those things are coming up to the surface. Probably looking for big tasty mammals like us and… _Peaches_!"

Ellie sighed, "Relax Manny, I'm sure it's just a one off. You saw that place, how big it is? Now tell me why the heck those dinosaurs would wanna come all the way up here when they've got all that space down there?"

"Yeah but…" Manny began, but was quickly silenced by a hush and a raised trunk from Ellie.

"I'm telling you now Manny and I want you to listen to me when I say this, and I mean _really_ listen." Ellie continued calmly to Manny as she began to gently stroke the top of his fore-head with her trunk, "There is nothing to worry about."

Manny slowly closed his eyes and gave a deep, heaving sigh. "I know. I'm sorry. It's just that…"

"Nothin' to be sorry about," Ellie interrupted. "C'mon let's go get something to eat. We'll see you guys later, okay? Oh and you two better be ready to explain this whole 'hot cave' thing when I get back."

Both Crash and Eddie swallowed nervously as they watched Manny and Ellie begin to plod away with their small, orange puffball, Peaches following close behind.

"We are totally boned dude," Crash commented to Eddie, who nodded gloomily in agreement.

Sarah shrugged, "She's your sister, what's the worst she could do honestly?"

"Beat the crap out of us," Eddie replied. "She's done it before."

"Well if it's any consolation I'm sure it's only because she cares about you," said Sarah.

"I guess," Crash said before giving a long, loud yawn, "Phew, I'm fried."

"You and me both bro," Eddie replied, also yawning, "Wanna catch a nap before dinner?"

"I was just about to say the same thing," said Crash. "Where'd Tracy and Russ get to?"

"Probably went home," Eddie answered as both he and Crash shuffled over to a nearby tree and lay back against it.

Seeing nothing else to do, Sarah decided to join them, taking up a position right next to Eddie and deliberately placing herself so that there two bodies were just close enough for their fur coats to mix at the edges. Today had been a heck of a day. Waking up to find she'd just slept with the wrong twin and two long treks back and forth from a searing hot death cave full of dead dinos, two things she had never even thought possible before she'd come here. What was it about this herd that seemed to make amazing opportunities for all manner of adventure gravitate towards them? What had she ever done to strike it so lucky? Really there was only one way to top off a good day like this and that was with a bit of wholesome family friendly humour.

"Hey Eddie," she whispered trying her hardest to prevent Crash from overhearing.

"What," the possum twin answered quietly.

"Wanna tell me some of those jokes?"

Eddie gave her a strange look. "Huh? Hell no, you'll kill me."

"No I won't, I was just kidding around before, I really do wanna hear 'em."

"No," he answered firmly.

"Aw c'mon how bad could they be honestly?" Sarah whined, before asking with a smile. "If you don't want Crash to hear 'em we could come up to my tree and mess around there."

"How'd that help? Crash's already heard them."

"Fine don't tell me the jokes, we can just skip straight to the messing around if you want," Sarah continued.

"Nah I just wanna nap here thanks."

Sarah frowned, how obvious did she have to be with these two?

"Eddie," she hissed in obvious frustration.

"What?" he replied irritably, just as Sarah decided to do something that she sincerely hoped made her intentions perfectly clear.

"Would you like to come to my tree now?" she asked.

"Oooh" Eddie exclaimed in a slightly higher voice than usual. "When you put it that way…"

Okay so sprinting off up the hill to make mad passionate love in the branches of the tree which she once called home and then dashing back for dinner in the hopes that no one would notice wasn't exactly ideal first date etiquette but hey, today had been a day of new experiences. Including Sarah helping herself to her first ever mouthful of trout while sitting around the campfire with her new, one hundred percent bona-fide herd.

Eddie was sitting right next to her, also digging into a great, juicy fish of his own, and Crash was also close by, now in the process of devouring what had to be his third helping. Sid was sitting by the fire as well, but unlike the three possums and being a herbivore, the sloth had chosen something of the more leafy variety on which to chow down.

Manny and Ellie were currently settled down somewhere off to the right in the north-eastern corner of the clearing with a couple of slightly overripe cantaloupes shared between themselves and their daughter. Diego lay by the fire next to Sid, thankfully having already eaten his fill of meat. At the moment Mikey was busy rotating an improvised spit that the herd had constructed, on which several fish were skewered and roasting rather nicely with a pleasant sizzle above the fire.

The weeks that followed were without a doubt some of the best she'd ever spent in her entire life. Each and every morning Sarah would wake up next to Eddie with what could only be described as a kind of pleasant aching running through every inch of her body. Both the physical and mental memories of the previous night still fresh in her mind.

The day would usually consist of a hearty breakfast with the rest of the herd when she would join them in planning the day ahead, discussing yesterday's weather, laughing, joking and sometimes even wrestling. After that she would usually join Eddie and his brother for a round of ice hockey, snowball or mud fighting with Tracey and Russel, along with any number of the other young mammals from around the local area. Finally when evening fell they would usually retire to the clearing for dinner after which she would spend the night with Eddie doing all the things young animals their ages lived to do.

Put simply things were going great for Sarah. She had a great boyfriend, and was now an honorary member of the single most awesome herd she had ever seen or heard of.

The only thing that seemed to be going at all wrong was the ground tremors that had begun to shake the landscape ever since that first earthquake. At first they were relatively mild and infrequent, no more than a faint rumble from the ground once or twice a day, and after the first few most of the animals grew to see them as nothing more than daily annoyance. Every now and then a particularly bad one might roll around, not nearly as bad as the first, but nerve wracking none the less, especially when they occurred in the early hours of the morning and jarred everyone awake with their great rumbles.

Thankfully this morning Sarah woke up to nothing except the chirps of birds, the warm rays of the sun against her face, and the sound of snoring coming from the branch above where Crash was evidently still sleeping. On the branch just to her right her Eddie was also fast asleep just like his brother, only he wasn't snoring like a gutted walrus. In the clearing below her most of the other herd members were already awake, although the majority of them were still lazing about in the warmth of the morning sun.

Sarah was surprised to see that Diego was still hanging around for once, sitting by the remains of the campfire and hastily cleaning the bloody remnants of his morning hunt from his whiskers. Manny and Ellie were still lying on their stomachs with Peaches in their usual space pretending not to notice what Diego was doing and greeted Sarah with a quiet wave of their trunks as she made her way down the tree trunk.

Since Sid wasn't anywhere to be seen she had to assume he'd gone to the little boy's bush.

"Hi kid," Diego greeted as Sarah clambered down into the snow.

"Mornin' to ya's," Mikey called sleepily from his position lodged snugly in the fork of another tree nearby.

"Hey," Sarah said in reply to both of them. "You know there's a perfectly good creek just west of here if you wanna wash, Diego."

"I'm not really a big fan of freezing cold water," Diego said in reply. "Lukewarm's hard enough on the best of days."

"Ah yeah I heard about that," said Sarah. "How's the whole water thing going?"

"Do ya' have to ask?" Diego remarked irritably.

"No but I'd sure like to know why the heck you're always away so much?" Sarah asked. "I promise to keep it a total secret if it matters that much to you."

Diego scoffed, "If I haven't told them why the heck do you think I should tell you?" The tiger paused for a moment and sighed before lying down onto his belly, "Doesn't matter now anyway. That iceberg went drifting with the sunrise, so you're gonna be seein' a lot more of me around here from now on."

"Geez I hope that's a good thing," Sarah commented playfully and was glad to see the tiger respond with a soft chuckle.

"Guess we'll have to find out," he said with a curious glance over Sarah's shoulder, but Sarah herself wasn't able to turn around to see what he was looking at before she was suddenly blinded as two paws suddenly clasped themselves over her eyes.

"Guess who?" a voice asked in a tone that could only really belong to Eddie.

"Eddie?" she answered.

"Nup," Eddie replied confidently.

Sarah sighed, "It's you isn't Crash?"

"Sure is," the second possum twin answered as he pulled his paws away and let Sarah turn around to look at the two of them grinning smugly as they high-fived, "Gotcha!"

Unsurprisingly, Crash was the one standing closest to her with Eddie close behind.

"God you two are idiots," Sarah exclaimed playfully as she leant forward and gave Eddie a quick good morning peck on the cheek, "How'd you sleep?"

"Terrif," Eddie replied happily.

"You?" she asked Crash.

"Alright I guess," the other brother answered. "You think you guys could keep it down a little when you get back here from wherever it is you guys go to do it? I'm sick of waking up in the middle of the night coz you guys can't stop yammering on."

Eddie laughed, "You're just jealous bro."

"Hah, you wish," Crash replied, rolling his eyes before turning away and heading out of the clearing, most likely in search of a little mammal's bush of his own.

"Hey Sarah wanna go say hello to Peaches?" Eddie asked.

"Ah, might as well," Sarah replied.

They both wandered over to where the two mammoths lay, with the third fuzzy bundle hopping about impatiently like an over excited puppy as the two possums approached. After a few moments they were joined once again by Crash, who was only too eager to join in on the baby games that had very quickly begun to take place with Peaches the new centre of attention. Breakfast followed shortly after with the entire herd making the move over to the small grove about half a mile away where a whole range of fruit, nuts and vegetables seemed to grow just about all year round. Here they ran into Jason, an aardvark friend of Crash and Eddie, and his family among a great many other animals who had all taken up a spot around the grove.

It was always fun around here, with all the kids and teenagers darting around between the family groups as they partook in all manner of games. After they had eaten their fill Crash, Eddie and Sarah managed to start up a food fight with some of the older kids from the south-side of the ice plains. Unfortunately Sarah turned out to be pretty woeful at fruit ballistics, but that didn't stop her from enjoying herself, even if she wound up smothered from head to toe in banana skins and nectarine juice.

When that fun was brought to an end by a positively irate beaver father who had been accidentally hit in the crossfire, Sarah and Eddie decided to use the ensuing whining and general commotion to sneak off for a quick make-out session inside one of the many bramble thickets. It was when they were just in the middle of slipping back out into the grove again that Sarah heard a faint rumbling sound, and from Eddie's sudden apprehension it was obvious he could hear it too.

"Whoa Sarah you eat something iffy?" Eddie asked with an impish grin on his face.

"Trust me Eddie, if it was me you would know it for sure," Sarah replied. "No joke."

Eddie laughed, "Heh, no kidding. I know that for a fact."

Although she could feel herself blushing slightly beneath her fur, Sarah didn't mind his little jest. In her opinion joking about bodily functions was just another part of a healthy relationship.

"Hey you hear that?" asked Eddie.

Sarah listened for a moment, but apart from the distant rumbling sound she couldn't really hear anything.

"No." she replied quizzically.

"Exactly," said Eddie. "Everything's gone all quiet again."

The two of them stood there for a few more seconds each listening intently to the growing thunder of the approaching rumbling, and Sarah rapidly noticed that apart from the soft rustle of the leaves above them, there wasn't a single other sound to be heard.

"That can't be good," Sarah pointed out as she began to recognise the sudden piercing calm as that which preceded only a heavy thunderstorm, or more recently, a ground tremor. And from the way it was growing in volume she could tell it was coming their way.

"Sound's like a big one," Eddie commented. "We'd better get back to the herd."

"Yeah, we'd better," Sarah agreed, and they both dropped to all fours and began scurrying through the snow in the direction they last remembered seeing the others.

As they passed through the grove it was immediately obvious to Sarah that if even she hadn't already suspected something, with all the other animals huddling together like frightened cattle it would've been pretty clear to even the most dim-witted individual that _something_ was up.

"Hey Ellie!" Eddie cried out as he and Sarah drew near the herd who were all standing out in the open and away from any trees, rocks or anything that might fall on them.

"Eddie!" Ellie exclaimed in a mixture surprise and relief.

"Eddie, Sarah, where the heck were you guys?" Crash asked as the two possums joined him and Peaches in the relative safety beneath the two hulking mammoths. Before Sarah could open her mouth to reply he decided to interrupt her with, "Never mind I don't wanna know."

Seconds later a tremendous shuddering began in the ground, accompanied by a soft rumble which emanated from somewhere beneath the snow, and Sarah quickly found herself grabbing hold of one of Manny's enormous tree trunk sized legs to stop herself falling over as the first wave of tremors took hold. A few minutes passed before a relative calm fell over the land, lasting only seconds before yet another wave of shaken Earth began to pass beneath them, and this continued on and off for several minutes with each concurrent wave of tremors being much worse than that which preceded it.

All around them trees were shaking and cracking, and creaking, with leaves and branches falling into the snow by the bucket load. Several birds were forced to take flight, and many of the arboreal species found themselves either clambering to the ground or leaping into neighbouring trees to avoid being crushed by falling limbs. The chaos was made even worse by what had once been a distant rumble rising rapidly to a near deafening clamour of thunder from beneath the ground that completely drowned out the numerous howls and cries from the animals around them.

The mere minutes within which the whole catastrophe took place felt as if it would last forever, but when it was finally over and the very last wave had faded to a distant rumble once more the air of unanimous relief was as strong as to be almost physical.

"Is every one okay? Anyone hurt?" a voice Sarah did not recognise began to yell.

"James, Jason, Nick, where's James?" another very nasally voice called.

Pretty soon the air was filled with all manner of different voices and animal calls as families and friends all began to invoke their usual post-quake safety plans.

"Phew," Crash exclaimed loudly, "That was a bad one."

"I dunno, last week was pretty bad," said Ellie. "Hey Manny wh-, where'd he go?"

Sarah looked around noticing the great bull mammoth was already hurrying away in the direction of the playground, and she heard Ellie give an exasperated sigh as she noticed him as well.

"I know it sounds a bit cliché," said Sarah, "But that guy _really_ needs to chill."

"And I thought he would calm down a little when Peaches was born," Ellie mused while stroking her daughter's head with her trunk. "Guess what? He only got worse."

"Don't worry Sarah," Crash assured her with a wink. "My bro doesn't have that problem."

"Your bro doesn't have any kids," Ellie cut in, and Sarah had to admit that she was probably right. No one really knew what kind of parent they would be until they actually were one, and if Sarah could have her way she would never have to find out. "C'mon guys. We should probably get back home and make sure everything's all right."

"Aw c'mon Ellie, ya' gotta admit, Manny _is_ a bit crazy," Eddie said as the group turned and began trudging through the snow back to the clearing.

"I'm not saying he isn't," Ellie replied, "But it's a little hard to judge since I never even knew my dad, or my real mom."

"Hey sis our mom is just as good as any mom, better if you ask me. I mean Trace and Russel's folks never let them eat stink bugs or roll around in dung patches," Eddie spoke up defensively.

"Yeah I know. She's still my mom and I love her just as much as you guys," said Ellie. "Although I kinda wish she'd gotten around to tellin' me about the whole not being a possum thing."

"Ah don't worry about it," said Crash. "You'll always be our really big sister."

"Hey Sarah," Eddie called and Sarah turned to face him as they walked alongside Ellie, "What's you're family like?"

"Yeah you're part of the herd now and you know everybody's story just about, so now you gotta tell us your story," Crash added eagerly.

Sarah couldn't help but give a nervous laugh as she wracked her brains for details. She hated being shoved into the spotlight.

"Well my mom and dad said I was born somewhere in the far North I think, but my family migrated down here at the beginning of the Ice Age just like everyone else," Sarah began, recalling some of her earliest memories of childhood. "My first pouch day was about three months later, but I can't remember much about that. I grew up in The Valley with my three litter-sisters, two older sisters and seven older brothers. Marlo, Jack, Ben and Randy were mom's first litter and then Harry, Craig, Milo, Lucy and Amanda were born the year after. Mom and dad decided to leave it there but then they went and got all tipsy on sour cherry juice three years later and wound up with me, Alex, Wanda and Leslie. That's thirteen in total, so we're just above average for possum families, but we still had to fight like crazy for all the good branches at bedtime."

"I bet things got pretty ugly 'round mealtimes too," said Ellie.

"No actually, things were pretty good in the valley when we were growing up." Sarah replied. "There was some kind of nasty parasite going around apparently and heaps of the bigger mammals were dropping dead all the time, so there was always plenty to go around. Course the numbers got thinned out a bit as well, I mean Jack got caught by a tiger when I was five, then Lucy and Milo got turned into lunchmeat by a family of martens when I hit seven, and Craig got caught by a falcon later that year. Oh yeah, and Alex, Ben, Randy and Leslie all died during a hurricane about six or seven years ago, but dad managed to save Wanda from the flash floods, which is real awesome coz she's the only one who could make wild-berry fruit salads."

"Wow, that's pretty harsh," Crash commented in an uncharacteristically sober manner.

Sarah shrugged. "Ah, you know how it is at the bottom of the food chain. You're gonna die someday and there's no point moping about, just be glad it wasn't you and keep on rolling with the party. Besides, if you ask my dad, the biggest tragedy in our family was when Marlo came out of the closet, and I don't blame him. If the last surviving member of my oldest litter turned out to be a boys-boy I'd be pretty damn ticked myself."

"Did he ever get over it?" asked Ellie.

"You kidding? When Marlo's mate, Patrick, turned out to be a real sour-juice savvy my dad was over the moon," Sarah replied. "Still, I suppose it's nothing like the kind of crazy stuff you guys have been through. I mean seeing real live dinosaurs, that-that's just amazing!"

"Not half as amazing as you'd think," Crash corrected her with a chuckle as they finally walked through the final wall of thick foliage that lined the fringes of the campsite.

Surprisingly nothing seemed all that out of place, not that there was much to fall out of place to begin with. But in comparison to some of the latest quakes, the leaves and occasional fallen branches merely gave the impression of more of a moderately windy night than an earthquake.

"Ahoy down there," Mikey greeted jovially as he leapt from his position in the treetops and stretched the thin membranous flaps that connected his wrists to his angles to glide gently down with surprising grace into the snow in front of the group. "How'd ya' be, I figured you blokes'd be back to check out the furniture after that little shake-up. Well never fear, I'm happy to say there's nothin' much amiss about here. Mind you I feel obligated to inform ya's about a certain, very curious old visitor who dropped by just a moment ago lookin' for none other than our very own mister chumly over there."

As he spoke Mikey pointed a small claw in the direction of Eddie, who responded to the sudden revelation with a wide-eyed look of intense surprise. Sarah was pretty surprised herself, so was everybody else in fact. Sure this heard was relatively well known about the snow fields but nobody ever really displayed any singular interest for any particular member. Especially not the possum twins, who were themselves overlooked completely by the majority of admirers.

"Who was it," Ellie asked with just a hint of suspicion in her otherwise calm and friendly voice.

Mikey shrugged, "Some old she-hawk. I felt pretty sorry for her really, poor thing looked pretty worn out and worried. From the looks of her I expect she's been flyin' all over the place lookin' for ya'."

At the mention of a female hawk alarm bells suddenly began to ring like mad inside Sarah's head. Was this the same hawk she'd talked to about three weeks ago? The very same hawk to whom she had explicitly sworn that she did not know Eddie, even though she knew it was a downright lie at the time, and who had continued to pursue her search right to this very day?

"So then what did you tell her?" Ellie continued.

Mikey suddenly began to shuffle his hind-paws uneasily. "Well if you can forgive an' old glider for havin' such a big heart, when I gave her a quick lookieloo she looked like a nice enough girl so I kinda, well, told her about where ya'd all gone and how long ya' might be, and I guess the long n' short of it is I asked her to stay around 'til ya' got back."

Although when Sarah looked back at Ellie she initially expected a look of anger or at the very least mild irritation, she wasn't all that surprised to see that the mammoth was smiling. Of course Sarah wasn't in any smiling mood at all. The second Mikey had mentioned the hawk her eyes instantly snapped to the treetops, desperately searching for any sign of the its whereabouts so she at least had a rough idea of which direction in which to dive out of the way when those razor-like talons inevitably came swooping down toward her.

"That's no problem," the she-mammoth replied. "What kind of herd would we be if we didn't help out the odd lost soul every now and then? Do you know where she is now?"

"I'm right down here actually," remarked a new female voice that was both calm and gentle yet thick with an air of strength and dignity not possessed by any land animal that Sarah knew of, and the fact that it had come from somewhere at ground level surprised her to no end. "Forgive my unusual grounding but since I am a guest on your territorial soil, I felt that it would be appropriate for a first meeting."

After a few moments searching Sarah finally spotted the voice's source, and unfortunately, just as she had feared, the owner was indeed a large, snow-white hawk, with powerful, amber coloured eyes and a sparse number of small brown speckles on her wings and breast.

Suddenly a single cushioned, thud echoed throughout the clearing as Crash flopped straight onto his back in a manner so cartoonish it would have been hilarious under lighter circumstances.

"Oh dear," the hawk exclaimed softly.

Ellie laughed. "Oh don't worry about it, he's just playing dead, it's a possum thing. I still do it sometimes when I get nervous enough."

"No, that's perfectly understandable. Although I must admit I was trying to avoid that," the hawk remarked. "You see I am looking for a particular possum who goes by the name of Edward. You might know him as Eddie. He is a very dear friend of mine with whom I have since lost contact, and I have been searching for him for quite some time now as I'm afraid recent events have brought to my attention a matter of rather grave urgency and there is a certain clause of our friendship which obligates me to- "

"Aldora!" Eddie exclaimed with such surprising volume that almost everyone in the clearing jumped with surprise as he cried out from behind one of his sister's forelegs.

Sarah looked on in complete dumbstruck astonishment as she watched her best friend and now mate of almost three weeks, leap out from his hiding place beneath his sister and sprint over to the equally bewildered hawk and just about flattened her to the ground as he threw his arms around as much of her body as he could reach.

"Well, I am glad to see that you, eh-hem, remember me," the hawk, who was apparently named Aldrora, managed to gasp through the possum's overenthusiastic embrace.

"Remember?" Eddie exclaimed as he let go and looked up into Aldora's eyes, "How could I forget! I mean yeah it's been ages, but,- wh-where have you been at? Whatcha been doing? How come you never visited me and Crash? I was always hoping you would."

Sarah and Ellie both shared a look of intense surprise, apparently even Eddie's own sister had heard nothing of this before.

"Eddie, dear, please believe me when I say that I am truly sorry for my lack of correspondence. I always had it in mind that I would see you again, but I'm afraid that circumstances repeatedly conspired against me," Aldora replied in a manner that was almost mother-like and at the same time filled with apology and regret. "Rest assured your wellbeing has always been a great concern of mine and I have endured as many terrible nightmares as I have enjoyed the most pleasant dreams pertaining to you and your family. You can not imagine how happy I am to see that you are all well."

"Uh, thankyou, I-I guess," Ellie replied.

Aldora smiled as she looked up at the mammoth. "Ahh yes," she mused with a smile, "Unless I'm much mistaken I believe you are the older, and might I say, more rotund sister that Eddie told me so much about. Do forgive me but my memory of your name has faded significantly with the years, would you mind refreshing it?"

"It's Ellie," the mammoth answered, "And this is Crash, he's Eddie's twin."

She indicated with her trunk the second possum who was just now beginning to sit up with a look of bemusement.

"And might I say you make quite a handsome trio." replied Aldora.

"Yeah I guess we are pretty awesome," Eddie remarked with a smug little grin.

The hawk gave a short chuckle of endearment, before she moved her gaze across to Sarah where it immediately froze and looked on for a few seconds of intense concentration.

"Oh yeah," Eddie exclaimed happily as he noticed the direction of Aldora's sudden piercing stare, and he was quick to walk back over to Sarah and wrap an arm around her shoulders with his chest thrust out proudly, "This is my mate, Sarah. She's great, and she knows some neat trick's on the ice too."

"Indeed," the hawk mused with the ever present smile still glued firmly to the edges of her beak. "And it may surprise you somewhat to know that we have already met. No more than three and a half weeks ago if memory serves. And indeed if memory serves I believe she assured me that she did not know any possum going by the name of Edward or Eddie. A very strange inconstancy in your logic is it not?"

This question was clearly directed solely in Sarah's direction and it was pretty obvious from Aldora's persistent stare that she wanted Sarah to be the one to answer for it. The only problem was that she had absolutely no idea what she could say that wouldn't result in her being brutally gutted alive.

"I-I, erm, well… well… ahh," Sarah stammered desperately for an answer, and at the same time huddled more closely to Eddie, banking rather strongly on the notion that if the hawk really cared about him as much as she seemed to then she wouldn't be willing to endanger his life in order to get to her. "You see… I… didn't really trust you. I mean you are a hawk and hawks normally, well, eat us possums for lunch… so… so I guess I was just afraid you were gonna hurt him or something."

To Sarah's surprise and immense relief Aldora actually began to chuckle.

"Quite understandable, and quite honourable I might add to think first of your mate before your own life. I am not surprised, and I assure you I am not angry. In fact I congratulate you. Both of you, you are a fine pair."

"Actually we've only been together for about three weeks," Sarah pointed out. "And we're not really _together_ or anything." Out of the corner of her eye she could see Eddie nodding to this. "I mean I do really like him, but it's not that serious at the moment. I wasn't even with him when I met you, we were just friends then."

"Never matter, a good friend or a good mate, a good person is a good person," Aldora replied. "Oh I see we have new arrivals."

Sarah turned and followed the hawk's gaze to where Diego, Sid and Manny were just now returning from there inspection of the playground after the recent earthquake, and by their looks of mild surprise they had only just now noticed the hawk standing in the snow just a few feet in front of the others. Seemingly unfazed by the presence of the stranger, Peaches rushed over from beside Ellie to greet her father with a series of quick, high pitched trumpets.

"Hi guys," Sid called loudly as he walked into the clearing. "The playgrounds fine, but a few rabbit holes got caved in so we stopped to help out an- hey who's the new guy?"

Aldora's neck feathers puffed up with obviouse indignity.

"_Her_ name's Aldora," Ellie answered, "She's come to see Eddie about something."

"Uh, hi there," Manny said to Aldora as he walked over and grumbled something to his mate.

"Hey, don't get all up in my face about it, I had no idea. Eddie never told any of us about it," Ellie exclaimed defensively.

"Yes I did, heaps of times, you guys just never listened." Eddie shouted indignantly.

"No, we just never believed you," Crash corrected. "There's a big difference."

"What does she want?" asked Diego.

"Well it would be nice to know your names for a start," Aldora replied. "I have already been introduced to your compatriots here but I'm afraid you have arrived somewhat late."

"Fine," Manny began rather impatiently. "I'm Manfred, that's Diego and we call this thing Sid." He indicated the others one by one as he spoke. "If you're looking to join the herd the answer's no, I don't know who decided to send out all the invites but they sure as heck never asked me and I'm pretty sure they didn't ask anyone else her-Ow!"

Manny was suddenly cut short as Ellie gave him a hefty kick and began directing an irate glare in his direction.

"I'm sorry about him," said Ellie.

"Please, there is no need for you to apologize for the ill-advised actions of another," Aldora stated with a smirk.

"So Aldora, what'd you want to tell me?" Eddie asked eagerly.

"Well, this message was intended to be a private one but seeing as you are all here I suppose it would be best shared amongst the entire herd," Aldora began. "As I'm sure you are already aware there has been a recent increase seismic activity in the area. Now I, along with two others of my kind, have taken a recent interest in such events and we have been lead to believe that the recent anomalies provide a strong indication that the rock formations lying just beneath these ice fields have begun to give way to the increasing pressure beneath them in the magma. Of course we don't understand the mechanics behind this nor do we ever expect to but what we do understand is that enormous quantities of superheated rock, gas and ash are surging toward the surface at incredible speed."

"And in English this would mean?" asked Crash.

"You have all been walking around on top of a volcano in the making, and it is about to erupt," said Aldora, and at these words a near unanimous gasp escaped the mouths of just about every animal in the clearing.

"How long have you known about this?" asked Diego.

"Only a few years now, after all we are merely a small collection of hobbyists looking to indulge our common interest in rare natural phenomena," Aldora replied.

"And when exactly were you guys planning on telling the rest of us that we were all living on top of a big fiery death crater?" asked Manny.

"Its progress was slow and so was never a matter of any great urgency," Aldora answered rather matter-of-factly. "To be fair we did not believe any such event would occur within our lifetime, it was merely a matter of interest and speculation."

"Do you have any idea how long we have left?"

"Vague at best. Anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, perhaps even months if you are inclined to risk such reckless patience. All I know is that it is going to happen and when I discovered that Edward was living here with his supposed family I knew I could not leave until I was sure that he was safe from harm," Aldora paused for a moment and gave a deep sigh before continuing. "He gave me reason to live, to keep pushing through such powerful hardship, when I first met him all those years ago. In short, he saved my life and I felt it was my honour bound duty to return the favour."

"Well in that case I suppose it looks like we'll be migrating again," said Ellie.

"You got any idea where we're gonna go?" asked Diego.

"West, about sixty miles to the other side of the mountains," answered Aldora. "If we leave soon it should only take a few days to reach them and perhaps another to reach the base at the other side. Assuming we can make it before the eruption begins, the high-silhouette of the mountain range should provide ample protection from both the gas and any ash fall."

"And if we don't?" the tiger asked.

"Then it is simple," said Aldora, "We will die."

* * *

**Of course if it was me I would have been sure to include the fact that in such an event the volcanic ash will be sure to immortalise their likenesses for eons to come. Then again I'm sure the same could be said of the good citizens of Pompeii, and just look how lively they are these days.**

**Oh yes and might I ask that this 'random-reviewer' person please obtain an author profile for themselves so that I may send them messages by a means far more frequent and functional than these author comments. Plus I also like to read profiles. I suppose you could say it gives me a sense of human closeness, and ability to relate but at the same time differentiate, the simple joy of knowing perhaps, I don't know, half the time I just spout all this philosophical BS to sound smart anyway, but of course if you'd read my author profile you would know that now wouldn't you ;).**


	6. One Long Walk

**Two days, now that's gotta be a record eh? Well there was a teacher's strike today at school so there was bugger all else to do. Admittedly it is pretty short compared to my standard text-walls but then why write much when there is relatively little to be said? And for the less patient among you I now make a sworn oath before you all that chapter 7 is going to kick things into high gear.**

* * *

Chapter 6

One Long Walk

Figuring it best in times of crisis to follow the timeless mantra the sooner the better, the herd set out at first light the next day. First light of course being in this case the very faintest tinge of light on the horizon to the east, a good two or three hours before the actual sunrise, so the herd spent most of the beginning of the journey trudging along in the freezing darkness of the early morning. At first it had been up to the possums to lead the herd through the dark, groggy and bleary eyed though they were, it brought the herd about an hour of intense whining and temper tantrums from both Sarah and the twins. Diego eventually pointed out that as a feline he also possessed perfectly good night vision and was more than happy to lead the herd himself as long as it meant that the possums would shut the hell up for five minutes. After that it was relatively quiet save for the snoring of all three possums as they slept on Ellie's back along with the occasional yawn from the other herd members.

By the time the very first sliver of golden sunshine began to peak above the horizon, the herd had just reached the shore of the Emerald Ice fields. For once Sarah awoke to find that the other two were already awake and sitting astride their sister's broad woolly shoulders enjoying a game of I-spy. Mikey on the other hand was still lying on his stomach fast asleep on Manny's back.

"… so it's not ice, icecap, iceberg or island?" said Eddie to his brother Crash. "Okay what about icefall?"

"Dude do you see any glaciers around here?" remarked Crash.

Sarah gave a loud yawn as she sat up and looked about while simultaneously giving her hindquarters a good scratching. There were only guys around so she figured it was alright, and besides it had always been a vital policy of hers that no matter where it was if she had an itch she would scratch it if she damn well pleased.

"Hey Sarah," Eddie greeted.

"Morning sexy," said his brother, with a meaningful glance at Sarah's incredibly messy head fur.

"Shut-up," she grumbled in reply and quickly began to groom herself so that she could look at least half-decent.

"Hey Sar-bear, you see anything around here that begins with I?" Eddie asked.

She looked around for a few moments before her eyes fell on a couple of snow-flakes that had melted together in to form a small icicle on in Ellie's fur.

"Icicle," she replied with a shrug.

"Nup," Crash answered with a smug grin.

Although she was a little disappointed Sarah didn't let it bother her, thinking to herself, _'Well, at least I took a shot at it."_

"Is it anything?" Eddie asked irritable.

"Sure, sure," said Crash. "You guys just aren't looking hard enough."

"Fine well I give up then," exclaimed Eddie.

Crash chuckled victoriously, "Yes!" he yelled happily. "I knew you wouldn't get it. Ice Age, man you're dumb."

Eddie sighed and leant over to whisper in Sarah's ear, "Wanna get busy right in front of him just to piss him off?"

Sarah pretended to think about it for a moment before replying with a smile. "Yeah, but I don't think your sister would appreciate that very much."

"Suit yourself," he said before turning around and punching Crash in the shoulder with such force that he was almost knocked clear off Ellie's back. Crash retaliated by grabbing Eddie's snout shut and attempting to jam his brother in the eyes to which Eddie responded by punching Crash directly in the stomach and virtually guaranteeing the vicious scuffle that quickly followed.

Sarah, seeing the chance for something interesting to do, was only too happy to join in and continued to help out her boyfriend in the two against one wrestle until Ellie began to scald them sternly to not fight on her back, lest she ditch them all and force them to walk. By this time Crash had a blood nose and a rather nasty scratch across his cheek while both Eddie and Sarah were pretty bruised and sore in any number of places. They were all smiling however, and soon began chatting again as if nothing had happened and it was around this time that all three possum's stomachs began to ache with hunger pangs.

"Hey Ellie is there any food around here?" Crash asked, his voice rendered nasally by his still bleeding nose.

"How the heck should I know," his sister answered back. "I don't even know where we are. Besides it's not my fault you didn't eat before we left like everyone else did."

"I was sleepy. I forget things when I'm sleepy," said Crash.

"Yeah me too," said Eddie. "You're our sister; you should know that by now."

"I know a lot of things I wish I didn't," Ellie commented.

"Aldora went ahead to search for food a few minutes ago," said Manny. "If there's anything within a reasonable walking distance she should be back soon."

"She better," Eddie remarked as he lay back with one paw on his stomach. "I'm so hungry I could eat an aardvark."

"Why don't you just try and eat Sarah's face like you always do?" Crash quipped with a smirk.

"Shut-up," the two other possums exclaimed in unison.

"You think any of the other animals know about the volcano?" Sid asked from down below next to Manny.

"I dunno," answered Manny. "We'd better ask Aldora when she gets back."

"If she gets back," Diego commented.

"Heh, you don't trust her do you?" asked Manny.

"Do you?" the tiger replied.

"We kinda have to," said Manny.

"Hey don't worry about it Manny," said Eddie. "We can trust her, I know we can."

Sara looked at her boyfriend. It was so strange for a possum like him to put so much trust in someone who under any other circumstances would have snatched him up for lunch in a second and grabbed both Crash and Sarah for desert next. What was the deal with that? What had he done to give a hawk reason to owe him so much?

"Hey Eddie," Sarah began.

"Yes-um?" her boyfriend asked, sitting up to face her.

"What's up with you and Aldora?" she asked.

"Oooh, jealous?" Eddie replied with grin.

"Yeah, you wish," Sarah answered. "I mean why the heck does she like you so much? What'd you do?"

Eddie shrugged. "It was ages ago. I can't really remember it that well. All I know is when I saw her I remembered her name, but that's just about it."

"Wow nice memory there Einstein," Sarah quipped with a grin. "How about I ask her when she gets back?"

"Whatever," Eddie replied, "Just make sure to tell me what she says okay, just in case she asks about it later."

"Sure, sure," Sarah answered as she briefly scanned the sky before leaning forward to talk to Diego, who was currently leading the group in a westerly direction as per Aldora's directions. "How's it hanging tiger?"

"Alright I guess," Diego replied, "What do you want?"

"Nothin', just bored really," said Sarah. "Whatcha thinking about?"

"How to get you to stop talking to me," Diego answered.

"Aw c'mon Deigo, why don't you tell me something about yourself? All the other guys have told me their stories, and now I wanna know yours."

"What's there to say?" asked Diego. "I met 'em while on a mission for my pack a few years back. I was supposed to get the baby for my pack alpha, Soto, but Sid and Manny had the kid and they didn't trust me to take it back to its herd."

"Were you going to?"

Diego scoffed, "No. I had a mission, and even if I didn't like it, it's not like I had a choice. If I didn't get the baby the pack would kill me, end of story. Trouble was those guys weren't dumb enough to just give me the kid so I had to lead them all to the hide out at half-peak so the entire pack could set up an ambush."

"And what the heck stopped you? I mean you had it all set up and everything, why didn't you just kill them all and be done with it?

Although Diego opened his mouth to answer, to Sarah's surprise it was actually Manny who answered. "Coz when you get down to it Diego's just a good mammal at heart, and like any good mammal he wasn't gonna betray his friends, even if it killed him. He's just a carnivore Sarah, not a monster."

Diego looked back at Manny with a smile and a single raised eyebrow, "You've changed a heck of a lot since we met you know."

"Yeah I know, someday when you've got your own kid you'll understand." Manny said as he gently stroked his daughters head as she tottered along through the snow in front of him and Ellie.

"Someday," Diego repeated with a longing sigh.

"She left you didn't she?" Manny asked suddenly, and Diego froze, looking back at the mammoth in surprise.

Sarah was surprised too, and now paying full attention to the conversation taking place before her and watching with intense interest.

"H-h-how did you…" Diego stammered.

"We were worried you were going to leave us again so we hired Berkley to find out for us," Manny replied with a smile. "What was her name?"

"Her name was Emiliana," Diego answered reluctantly. "And she didn't leave me. Her pack was moving on and she had to go with them. The whole time I knew she would have to leave eventually and I didn't mind that, I just didn't think it would happen so soon."

"Did you ask her to stay?" asked Ellie, who had also been listening.

"No point." Diego replied, "A tiger's loyalty is to their pack, she wouldn't have had a choice. The only way we could stay together is if I joined her pack but…"

"You didn't want to leave us," Manny finished for him.

"No, most sabre packs have a trial fight to test all the wannabes; normally against the pack's beta. Just one look was enough for me," Diego said with an awkward smile. "I didn't stand a chance against that guy."

"How come nobody told me?" asked Sarah.

"Because you would have blabbed to Crash and Eddie, and you know what they're like." Manny replied.

Although Sarah was slightly insulted by what he had said she could easily see the reasoning behind their decision to keep all three possums in the dark about Diego's little liaison. Although she liked Crash, and was perhaps on the verge of maybe even loving Eddie, she could understand how irresistible an opportunity like that would have been for the two serial pranksters.

Suddenly a piercing cry echoed around the area, originating from somewhere in the air high above them, and as the whole herd including a very grumpy and shaken Mikey, looked up to find the source they spotted the unmistakeable silhouette of a hawk circling in the sky. Apparently noticing that it had been spotted, the hawk circled above the group for a few more seconds before flying out a few hundred feet before banking sharply to the left and circling back around before gliding in for a slippery landing on the ice just a few feet away from the herd. Thankfully as they all approached Sarah noticed very quickly that it was Aldora.

"Finally," Manny exclaimed as they walked over to her, "So what have you got for us?"

The hawk smiled. "I have good news. Although I am not surprised by these findings, you may all be fairly interested to know that these ice fields are merely the frozen remnants of a large inland lake which appears to be over thirty-five miles across. Fortunately there is a small island formation just over three miles southwest of here and there is plentiful forest growth on most of them so finding food should not be a problem for now."

"Thank goodness," said Ellie. "We've been walking for hours now, and I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"Well if you need a break you only have to say so," said Manny. "You can't get too stressed out you know. We got the first bun out okay, and I don't wanna burn the second one."

"Yeah but we can't rest out here in the open," said Diego.

"Although none of the nearby species present any immediate danger I'm afraid the tiger is correct." said Aldora, "The closest island is little over an hour away. Surely you are able to make that distance?"

"Hey if there's food over there I'd walk a hundred miles," said Ellie.

* * *

**Okay so not much happened, but the journey has begun and I have unloaded a few of the more minor plot details that have been nagging at the back of my head for ages now.**


	7. Stepping on Cracks

**Wow that took a while, yes I am very-very-very-very-very-very-very sorry and would you mind putting down the torches and pitchforks, you're scaring the ferrets. I have my reasons for some of the delay; unemployment, graduation hassles and just my new-found adulthood in general being the biggest contributors but of course where would I be without a little good old fashioned procrastination and laziness as well. I'm only human damn it :P.**

**Much extolment goes to my bro for being so very, very patient with me and not for all the missed typos that I had to fish out myself.**

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Chapter 7

Stepping on Cracks

It had been about three days since the herd had first set out, but despite good weather and smooth terrain they had so far only made about fifteen miles. Needless to say this was a somewhat underwhelming result considering they still had more than forty-five miles left to go and hadn't made it so much as one foot past the second island, thanks mostly to Peaches contracting a rather nasty stomach bug. Naturally this sent Manny's obsessive paternal mania into complete overdrive, while Ellie fortunately managed to remain relatively calm despite her own obvious concerns. Fortunately though, the worst of it was over in less than a day and the herd were now left waiting for Peaches to complete her recovery.

The other members were left with little else to do except check out the Island and the surrounding ice field. With so much free time on her hands Sarah was always happy to join Crash, Eddie and Mikey in a game of two-on-two hockey or soccer using the nut shells that lay about the place. Admittedly, Mikey made a pretty crap sportsman, so Sarah often found herself flinging all manner of colourful profanities in his direction whenever they lost, which was just about all the time. Luckily he didn't seem to take any of it to heart.

Of course she and Eddie made sure to do whatever they could to keep the passion burning, even though the island's meagre size made it extremely difficult to find any privacy. To be honest it was kind of a new experience for her though, she'd never really stuck around with any one guy this long, let alone been committed enough to join their herd, assuming they had one of course. Then again the whole volcano thing did kind of limit her options, besides she liked these guys, and more importantly she still liked Eddie.

Over the course of their wait Sarah and Eddie had tried to convince Mikey to tell them some stories about his travels, but he'd just shrugged them off with a non-specific "Aw ya' know, a lot of things," before quickly changing the subject to the increasingly warm and overcast weather. To be honest Mikey seemed to prefer living in the here and now than reminiscing over what was, although he certainly knew a lot of strange and interesting facts about weather and navigation as well as an expansive repertoire of weird atmospheric and astronomical phenomena. Maybe Buck was more of a storyteller than he was. Who knows? It was a sure bet that Sarah would never find out though, largely due to Mikey's very clear loathing of that particular subject. All she had to work on was what the other herd members had to say about him from their brief spell underground.

As had been the norm of late, today was just another lazy day. The overcast weather seemed to have cleared up a bit for the time being so Sarah and the possum brothers had been eager to seize their chance for a bit of time in the sunlight. However, feeling altogether too lethargic to partake in any more energetic activities, they had all decided just to lie out in the snow and bask in the midsummer warmth.

"…what do you think Ed?" Crash asked his brother.

"I don't even wanna think about it," Eddie replied.

"Heh, I know what you mean bro," said Crash. "Two dudes doing something like that, sounds a bit gay."

Sarah rolled her eyes. She'd never been able to understand the distinct homophobia that existed within the male psyche. Personally she found the thought of two males doing the horizontal shuffle strangely arousing, not that she would ever tell Eddie that.

"Has Ellie said anything about when we might get going?"

"Nup," answered Eddie.

"Geez your niece really seems to have a sense of timing," Sarah commented with a sigh. "You guys feel up for a round of football or something. We might as well do something while the sun's still out."

"What? Two on one?" asked Crash.

"How about a free-for-all snowball death-match," Sarah replied with a grin, "If you think you can handle it."

Eddie laughed, "You're on babe."

With that they all leapt up and made for the ice which was just about the only reasonably flat surface around and upon reaching the shoreline they quickly set about putting together their own stockpiles 'ammunition' from the snow before racing out onto the ice to begin the pelting.

Within minutes all involved were smothered in freezing layers of white powder, as well as sporting a few minor bruises, as usual, but due to a lack of any impartial party to reliably tally the scores, there was no way to tell who was winning at any given moment. Not that anyone involved really cared. Hours passed, along with howls of laughter and some extremely vocal foul language, and the game probably would have continued for much longer were not interrupted by the sound of a deafening roar.

As the ruckus fell away to an uncomfortable silence Sarah noticed that both Crash and Eddie were staring apprehensively toward the shoreline, where stood a positively irate looking Diego who was glaring back at them through a face-full of snow.

"Uh, sorry about that!' Eddie called, "Remember, you promised Ellie you wouldn't kill us."

Despite his apology Diego began stalking onto the ice toward them, and all three possums began to recoil with fear.

"I didn't think he was the type of tiger who makes exceptions," Sarah commented nervously.

Yet as Diego drew closer she noticed the expression on his face was not of anger at all but more of slight annoyance. Although admittedly on a face like his the two were fairly indistinguishable.

"You might wanna be more careful about where you're throwing those," he growled, with a meaningful glance toward the snowballs in their paws, "Someone might get hurt."

"Heh, sorry about the crossfire tiger but them's the rules of war," said Crash.

"What… this? Hah, with an aim like that you'd be lucky to hit Ellie if she was standing right in front of you, let alone a tiger at almost fifty feet." Diego replied with a sneer. "This crap's from poking around in just about every bush and tree on the island looking for you three."

"Uh, why?" asked Sarah.

"Take a wild guess."

"Ellie," Crash and Eddie moaned in perfect unison.

"Yep," the tiger replied.

"What the heck does she want us for?" asked Eddie.

"Ooh, is the new baby coming already?" asked Crash

"No, that's months away. She just told me to get you three for her, it's not like I cared enough to ask-"

It was then Diego was interrupted by a sudden icy snap that made everyone jump with fright.

"Whoa, what was that?" asked Sarah.

"I dunno, but-"

Another snap pierced the air before Diego could finish, and by the sound it, it seemed to be coming from the ice beneath. Not a very good sign.

"Uh Diego, by any chance did you stop for lunch before you got here?" asked Crash.

"No, why?" Diego replied.

"Well…" the possum twin pointed downward toward the tiger's paws, where a peculiar number of cracks had started to appear in the ice just beneath him.

Diego sighed irritably and turned to make his way back to shore as the two possum twins began sniggering derisively, but as he took another step a loud crunching noise erupted from beneath him and he froze quickly.

"Well that's just great," the tiger remarked with obviously thick sarcasm.

"Hah looks like you're on thin ice Diego," Eddie quipped, apparently with great amusement despite the fact that the pun itself was positively cringe worthy.

"Need some help there _big_ guy," Crash chimed in with a wisecrack of his own.

At this point Sarah couldn't help laughing, and for once she could actually feel good about it since she wasn't particularly fond of Diego anyway.

The tiger let out an irritable growl as he began to walk back toward the shore, ignoring the continued ominous crunching and crackling of the ice beneath his paws as well as the continued jeers of the possum twins.

"Hey Sarah," Eddie suddenly whispered, "Watch this."

With a nod and wink he indicated the snowball he was still carrying in his right paw as he raised it to throw toward the tiger. However, although Sarah dearly wanted to see the tiger's reaction, she couldn't help feeling a bit nervous. Predators didn't tend to think very straight when they were angry. Her reservations soon became moot though as the snowball went flying, bearing straight toward the tiger, and flying through the air for just a few brief moments before striking the tigers rump, peppering the fur with specks of snow.

Diego froze where he stood for almost half a second before he spun around with a terrifying speed and ferocity that Sarah had never seen before. Lasting just a few short seconds the moments that followed felt almost like hours in which he treated them to a stare of the most intense murderous fury. Beside her, Sarah heard both possum twins gulp in fear and she two gave in to the urge to swallow her own tongue as she stood stock still in the tiger's gaze.

'_Oh so not a good idea!'_

Suddenly Diego let forth a deafening roar as he charged toward the three dumbstruck possums, who only several milliseconds too late regained the presence of mind to start running in the opposite direction before he came within pouncing distance. As for Sarah herself, she couldn't really tell when or from what distance the tiger finally made his killing leap, after all she was far too busy sprinting in the opposite direction, but by the time he came down all she felt was her comparatively tiny form smack down painfully onto the ice. Strangely enough though, the falling didn't exactly stop there. For some time after the initial impact Sarah could still fee the familiar sensation of falling. Even in the pitch dark and numbness of her final moments of consciousness she could still feel it.

It was kind of strange to think of it like this, but if this was what dying felt like it was kind of disappointing. No light or fanfare, no long dead relatives come to say hello. Heck there wasn't even a good old out of body experience where she got to see her own body being torn apart by the lucky predator of the day. It was all just a whole lot of nothing really, what a bummer.

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"Hey wake up mister snoozy," a high pitched female voice suddenly spoke from somewhere very near Mikey, who was currently napping against the base of a tree. "Night's just about here and Mullet wants to get goin' soon."

With a long, loud yawn Mikey opened his eyes to the glitter of the late afternoon sun as it reflected off the shiny, brown eyes of Steve's older sister, Gaz, who was currently standing nose to nose with him bearing an absurd grin on her face. A surprising start to the evening for most, but for Mikey it had become standard practise to expect this of such a ditsy little marten as her. Little in this case being pretty figurative since Mikey was actually the shortest in the group, mostly owing to his being a yellow-bellied glider and so the only non-mustelid in his friendship circle.

"Hmm. Might-bit sooner than I expected, must be pretty bloody eager to get to… uh," Mikey paused as he stood up. In his groggy daze he'd completely forgotten exactly where the heck they'd been heading.

"Hey don't look at me," said Gaz, speaking with her usual thick Irish accent. "No one ever tells me anythin'."

"Heh, knowin' that weasel we could be heading for the Himalayas," Mikey quipped as he moved to follow Gaz to where he sincerely hoped Buck and Steve were hanging around.

"Oh I hope not, I don't like heights very much," replied Gaz.

"Well in that case that's where he might just lead us if ya' don't stop callin' him Mullet," Mikey warned in jest. "If he thinks it looks good, that's the way he's gonna keep it."

Within a few minutes Mikey was able to make out the all too familiar voices of his two best mates loafing around in the snow somewhere nearby.

"I'm starvin' you blokes got anything in mind for breakas," he called aloud as he came within earshot of the two mammals.

"Nothing' if ya' don't go n' catch it ya'self," an English accented voice called followed by a brief spate of laughter.

"Don' worry Mikey, he's just messin' with ye'" a second voice called, this time with a thick Irish accent not unlike Gaz's. "We've got enough fer' everyone over here."

As Mikey and Gaz rounded a small thicket of shrubs and bushes he quickly noticed the source of the two familiar voices, one Eurasian pine marten, and a single orange-brown pelted weasel with a hilarious mullet hairstyle.

Between them lay a small assortment of freshly killed moles and rats along with a couple of bird eggs. Of course there were also a couple of fresh nectarines lying to the side just for Mikey since he wasn't exactly a carnivore on the same level as his companions were. Normally the glider would have enjoyed some nice crunchy insects on the side but it seemed the cold climate around here wasn't exactly their fare. To be honest it wasn't really Mikey's either.

At least Steve and Gaz seemed to enjoy themselves, and Buck was thoroughly over the moon.

Interesting aside: when it came to the two martens, Steve and Gaz weren't really their names. Not even close to it in fact, but since neither he nor Buck had ever really been able to get their tongues around those whacky Irish names of theirs, they had decided on Gaz and Steve instead. Luckily the two martens seemed to have rather gracefully accepted this arrangement, even better considering Cathair and Gráinne sounded nothing like the way they were supposedly spelt. More like Kaheer and Grawnya apparently but he'd be damned before he'd try.

"So how do you chaps feel about some spelunking tonight?" Buck asked suddenly as Mikey sat down to enjoy his first piece of fruit.

"I don't know, but somethin' tells me I shouldn't be hearin' this," replied Gaz.

"Relax sis', he's talkin' about subterranean exploration. You know caves n' all that," Steve corrected.

Mikey tried not to snort his mouthful of nectarine as he fought to hold back a burst of laughter.

"If it helps ya' with the numbers any, you can count me out," the glider spoke up quickly to hide his sniggering. "I don't like places where I don't know where I am, and that's bad enough on the best of days so that goes quadruple-billion if it's underground."

Buck chuckled, "Is there any point durin' ya' wakin moments that ya' aren't afraid of something?"

"I never said anythin' about bein' tough, I'm just here for the ride."

"What, an' yer' gonna jump off the moment it gets too scary fer ya'?" asked Steve.

Mikey just smiled and took another bite of his nectarine. Of course he would, it wasn't like he'd made it a secret.

"Ah ya' such a wuss sometimes Mike," Buck continued, pausing momentarily to take a fresh bite out of one of the rats from the pile. "Here's a question for ya'. If any of us, okay, _all_ of us got into somethin' sticky an' you were the only one who could get us unstuck would ya do it if it meant puttin' ya' own dear self to any risk whatsoever?"

The glider scoffed, "'Course I would. I may be a coward but I sure aint no traiterin' bastard."

"It's kind of a pointless question anyway when ye' think about it." Steve cut in, "We put up with all yer' funny business anyway, without us you have no one. If we died, you'd be better off joinin' us."

"Well if ya' wanna look at it that way," said Mikey. "Why would ya' bring that up anyway? I thought we agreed my business is my business, and for the record there isn't anythin' funny about it to me."

"Ah whatever, it's not like it changes anythin' anyway," Buck interjected. "Unless o' course ya' had thing for me or Steve, then we might have somethin' to talk about, but ya' don't, so how 'bout we just leave it at that. Now if ya' wouldn't mind could ya' give me an answer? Ya' still owe me one."

"I'd go to hell and back twice over with two giant rocks tied to my tail," Mikey finally answered.

"An' I wouldn't expect anythin' less from any of me' mates," said Buck, "So are ya' comin' or what?"

Mikey sighed as what had just transpired truly began to dawn on him. That tricky bloody weasel had just backed him into a corner from which there was only really one answer that wouldn't result in some serious backlash from his friends now that he'd basically given them his word of absolute mateship. _Again_.

"Yeah, sure thing I guess," he answered with a great deal of feigned enthusiasm. "Just one thing though?"

"Shoot," Buck replied with yet another mouthful of rat meat.

"This aint gonna be too dangerous is it?"

_**17 years later**_

"So are we agreed now?" the hawk asked impatiently to the small congregation of mammals lounging in the clearing below. "We leave at first light tomorrow morning."

"For the record I was against stopping at all in the first place," Ellie added. "If I'm gonna wind up deep fried in molten rock I'd rather not sit around waiting for it."

"Well I'm sorry if our sick daughter was too much of an inconvenience," said Manny.

"Oh will you just drop it already," said Ellie. "We're leaving tomorrow, enough said."

"Wait hold on a second," Sid interrupted. "Where are we going again?"

A resounding groan filled the clearing and the whole discussion began again.

While lazing around on a tree branch nearby, just at the edge of the clearing, Mikey couldn't help chuckling quietly to himself. This whole argument had been going around and around in circles since this morning. Every time the troupe appeared to be in agreement someone would say something stupid, everybody would start arguing and the whole glorious cycle began anew.

Right now the glider couldn't help congratulating himself on his wise decision to stay out of the whole mess and just pretend to find something mind-blowingly fascinating about snowflakes caught in his fur. Maybe following the possums wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all? Even if Eddie and Sarah decided to sneak off for a bit, he'd still have had the other twin to entertain him, it'd be far better than this drawl any day.

To be honest, choosing to risk his first attempt at friendship in a very long time on that possum girl was really starting to pay off. He'd had more fun in the last few weeks with this herd than he'd had in almost as long as he could remember. It certainly beat moping around the ice field all evening being all miserable and apathetic that was for sure.

"Help!' a small voice suddenly cried out over the din.

Mikey looked down from the tree to see who had just arrived, and he was surprised to see one of the possum twins racing into the clearing with a positively hysterical look about him.

"Guys! You gotta come help!" he cried as he skidded to a halt in front of the two mammoths.

After a few moments Mikey was able to make out that this possum was Eddie, thanks to the easily distinguishable brown streak on his muzzle.

Manny gave an irritable sigh, "What've you two done now?"

"Where's Sarah?" Mikey asked.

"She fell into the hole with Diego," Eddie replied urgently. "C'mon we've gotta help 'em."

"A hole? What the heck were you guys doing?" asked Ellie.

"No time, come on!" Eddie yelled.

Ellie looked towards Manny who just rolled his eyes and shrugged.

"Alright, alright, we're commin', but this better not be a prank coz we were in the middle of something here," Ellie finally replied, and she gestured for Peaches to follow them while Eddie raced to the front in order to guide the heard. "Come on sweetie let's see what your uncles have gotten into this time."

For a few moments Mikey lay back in the tree and watched while the other herd members began to file out of the clearing after Eddie. Any other day the glider would have been all too happy to follow and find out what had happened but now that Sarah was involved that certainly complicated things for him. He didn't like getting bad news about his friends, and it was usually his automatic inclination to ignore or avoid any kind of situation that could present such issues, and given that Sarah was just about his only real friend at the moment that went double now.

"Erm, excuse me but are you not going to follow them?" Mikey looked over into one of the neighbouring trees where Aldora was currently roosting with a calm, almost placid look about her features.

"Aren't _you_?" he replied.

"Edward is my charge to whom I owe certain unbreakable obligations, I do not have a choice," she replied sternly, "I just wanted to know if you were to follow as well, after all you do seem quite well acquainted with that female Eddie is currently involved with."

"Yeah 'course I'm commin'," Mikey answered, "Just gotta stretch out the ol' legs first."

The hawk smiled, "Very well, but don't take too long, we have wasted enough time already."

"Sure thing," he replied with a wink, and watched as the hawk took flight.

A few minutes passed before he finally decided to climb down from the tree and onto the thin layer of dirty snow that littered the ground below. Thankfully the island on which they were staying was a very small one indeed so after scurrying through the underbrush for only short while Mikey soon found himself walking in the clear sunlight of the island's shoreline. A couple of seconds later he managed to spot the herd who were currently huddled ominously around something on the ice, and with a sudden pang of unease deep in his gut Mikey raced over to them and pushed through to the front.

Fortunately, however, much to his relief the object of their interest was not in fact Sarah's splattered remains, but instead a rather large hole in the ice. Not that this put him very well at ease.

"So you through a snowball at him?" Manny exclaimed as he suddenly found himself staring very quizzically at the hole. The question of course being how the heck a little possum like Sarah or Crash had made a hole that size.

"Oh Eddie what did we tell you about teasing Diego? You know he has a short fuse," said Ellie.

"Yeah, but we didn't know he'd be stupid enough to jump!" Eddie replied defensively.

Okay, suddenly Mikey could see what might have happened now.

"Since when does anyone actually think when their really cheesed off?" said Ellie. "You guys should've just shut up and left him to it."

"Are they alright, I can't see them?" asked Sid.

"Its pitch black down there, of course you can't see them," said Manny.

"Do you know how far they fell?" he asked again. "Wait, do you think the dinosaurs got them?"

"I think the answers to both questions are kinda tied up by the answer to the first one," Manny replied in annoyance.

"Well we gotta find out don't we?" said Eddie. "I mean we can't just leave 'em."

"If needs must that is certainly an option," said Aldora.

"No we can't, that's Crash and Sarah down there; my brother and my ma-uh-friend, too!" Eddie cried in obvious exasperation.

"And Diego," Sid added. "What about him? He's gone through a lot for this herd, we kind of owe it to him."

The hawk sighed and waited for a few moments before replying. "Look at this realistically, all of you. None of us know what is down there and no one here has the capacity to find out, unless of course you all wish to leap in and trust your luck. What exactly is there to do apart from count them casualties of the journey and move on?"

"Well you've got wings, you could just fly down," said Sid.

"No," Aldora answered bluntly.

"Why not?" asked Ellie.

"Well I am truly sorry if there has been any misunderstanding about this agreement but young Edward is the only reason I am here, the rest of you are just fortunate associates in my eyes. If by saving him I save the rest of you than that is just a fringe benefit. That is for him of course, not for me. I honestly do not care if any of you survive or not," Aldora paused for a moment and her features suddenly fell into a steely, determined gaze. "If I have to take him myself and leave you all to your fates I will do so with neither repent nor regret. I hope this has made my position on the matter sufficiently clear."

The entire herd fell silent as they stared with a mixture of shock, despair and immense indignation toward the hawk who had once again adopted her usual air of pensive indifference.

"So y-you're saying that if we don't leave them to die you'll just take Eddie and let the rest of us roast?" asked Sid.

Aldora didn't answer. She didn't need to. That was exactly what she'd said and they all knew it too.

Mikey looked away from the hawk. As blunt and unbelievably selfish as that had sounded he could definitely see where she was coming from. If he'd spent months trying to track down someone to warn them and possibly even save them when it would have been so easy just to run away and save himself, the last thing he'd want is to have all that effort put to waste by a bunch of over-emotional nitwits.

The glider then suddenly stretched out his gliding flaps as an idea struck him, a stupidly dangerous idea.

Though he wasn't ordinarily the kind of person to take unnecessary risks, let alone any risks at all and he'd never been one to say no to the soft option. Heck it was why he was still here and not just another rotting stiff lying buried beneath layers of mud, rock and leaves that lay in the paradise of the dead, dumb and deluded.

Looking down into the hole, Mikey couldn't help but wince. He'd heard the stories, he'd seen all the 'dino' tracks and he'd watched his best mates march down into the depths and never seen them again. Now Sarah, Crash and Diego were somewhere down their, probably either scared out of their wits or taking an interactive tour of the dinosaur digestive system. Either way he was going to find out.

Shaking a little with fear and anticipation of what he was about to do, Mikey walked over to Eddie and whispered quietly into the distraught possum's ear.

"Remember me as a bloody coward."

Eddie suddenly looked up with an enormous smile, and Mikey gave him a quick wink before walking up to the edge of the hole, taking a huge breath as his heart pounded in his ears like a mammoth's footsteps before he spread his flaps and leapt off into the abyss below.

"BUUUU…!"

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**Not the longest, but it's not the shortest either way I hope it was worth the wait, although it probably wasn't and for that I am eternally ashamed. Now to Mr./Mrs. RandomReviewer are you gonna get profile soon or what? Correspondence through little tidbits on my author page and anonymous reviews to my story does seem a little cumbersome you know. (Makes me feels a bit like Maxwell Smart, and not in a good way.)**

**By the way did I ever mention that Mikey was an Eastern Australian Yellow-Bellied Glider before? I don't think I did.**


	8. Land of the Dead, Dumb and Deluded

**Okay ladies and germs here it is at last, a little later than intended but nothing like last time you can see. I hope you all enjoy it as usual but for the love of all that is holy please feel free to criticize, if there's anything wrong now or gathering on the horizon I really want to know and when you do please give it to me straight, there's no need to hold back a necessary blow. If I don't know what I'm doing wrong how on earth can I improve?**

**Of course this piece was edited by my brother as usual. He's actually got a profile here now so if you wanna know more about the guy who makes my work barely tolerable just look up his pen-name, Parsifal. (Apparently that's supposed to be Percival in Dutch. It's also the name of some opera penned by Richard Wagner but I think that was just a coincidence)**

**Oh and finally please do tell me about any typos you find, even after publishing it usually takes me a day or two of proofreading to catch most, but I never seem to quite catch them all.**

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Chapter 8

Land of the Dead, Dumb and Deluded

"…UUUGGG-oomph!" Mikey's cry was cut short as his fall was brought to an abrupt stop by an unseen piece of ice well before his gliding flaps could catch any air.

However before he could regain any of his senses he began to feel the strange sensation of cold ice sliding rapidly across his belly, and despite trying as best he could to stop or at least slow down he soon found the ice was far too solid and slippery for him to dig his claws into. Seconds later he felt his side hit something very hard jutting out from the ice and he was sent rolling helplessly further and further down an incredibly steep slope that he couldn't even see, now with a stabbing pain in his side. Soon he felt the cold, wet surface of the ice give way to something much harder, much warmer and much more painful as he repeatedly slammed into it while he rolled and slid down ever further until his bruised and beaten body finally came to rest on a level surface.

Several minutes passed before Mikey decided to open his eyes to a swirling sea of blurry colours and weird dark blobs.

He closed his eyes again and continued to lie on his belly feeling very much worse for ware. Thankfully a brief pat down on his aching side told him nothing was broken, but there was definitely some nasty bruising going on.

"Should've looked first," he muttered in a quiet, croaky voice followed by a pained groan as he forced himself to roll over and sit up.

After giving himself another quick once over to make completely sure that nothing was missing, Mikey took a moment to inspect his surroundings.

All around him he could see nothing but an impenetrable barrier densely packed jungle flora surrounding the little patch of leafy mud in which he had landed. The air was rank with the sickly cloying odor of decaying vegetation reminiscent of the sub-tropical rainforest from which he hailed. To be honest it was a real blast from the past, in more ways than one if the stories were to be believed.

Just behind him Mikey eyed an almost vertical spire of ice that ran all the way back up to the icy field above, which seemed to form a kind of strange icy ceiling through which quite an impressive amount of sunlight was filtering through, casting a stunning orange glow over the landscape. Not that the glider could see much of the landscape from where he was.

At least now he knew how the others could have made it down without falling to their deaths. That cleared the first hurdle, but now it was on to the second, finding out if any of the group had managed to avoid becoming carnivore chow.

Of course first principles of tracking was, what else, to find some tracks. Unfortunately the thick layer of leaves made it very difficult to find anything physical, like footprints. If it had just been mud that wouldn't have been a problem but being as it was Mikey decided to move onto option two which was tracking by scent. This, method quickly proved its merit as he proceeded to sniff out quite an abundance of different fur types. He caught the familiar scents of possums and tigers, as well as the much less inviting smell of recently dried blood. Not that that was too much of a problem, after a fall like that they were bound to have their fair share of injuries.

The next step, discovering which direction they had decided to head off into was a little more difficult, forcing Mikey to really put his nose to the ground and try to find a trail. He was soon met with success but only after some serious olfaction all over the area. Hell he was even fortunate enough to find a great big, tiger sized imprint in the muddy leaves, and the fact that there was no dead tiger to fill it was a very good sign indeed. If Diego was still alive and kicking the trio might just stand a chance.

As for Mikey himself the scent trail he'd found seemed to follow a single set of heavy looking tracks, most likely from Diego's paws, and although he had no idea where they would be going down here he had no choice but to follow them. The sooner he found the others the better because as things stood now he was pretty vulnerable on his own. Hell forget vulnerable, he was positively terrified, after all this wasn't his first time down here, and the last time hadn't been all that longer stint really and he'd be damned if he had to stay any longer than he had then.

"Damn it fella's," he whispered quietly to himself as he began to head off along the trail. "Aintcha ever heard of the stop and wait rule?"

* * *

_**17 years prior**_

"…look girly if ye' don't wanna go then don't, none us'll stop ye'," Steve said as he turned back to face Mikey who was currently walking about a meter or so behind him.

"That's not what I meant," the glider replied irritably.

"Then what did ye' mean girl scout?"

Mikey sighed, "Nothin'."

There was no point in arguing with Steve when he was acting like this.

"Yeah, sure," Steve replied as he turned away toward Buck who was currently leading about two or three meters ahead of the other two.

From the wide, confident strides and stiffened posture it was all too easy to see he was excited. It really made Mikey jealous that the guy could find such excitement in trudging through knee-deep mud in pelting rain surrounded by an utterly impenetrable darkness that was broken only by the occasional flash of lighting and the inevitable thunder clap that followed.

"Do you even know where we are?" he asked.

"Oh for the love of-" began Steve.

"I wasn't talking to you," Mikey interrupted.

Steve grunted irritably as he turned to face the weasel ahead of him, "Oi, Buck, wet tail wants to know where we are."

The weasel suddenly stopped in his tracks as replied, "You know I've honestly got no idea," and turning back to face them both with a tremendous grin on his face he continued, "But that's the fun bit dontcha think?"

Suddenly the air was filled with a tremendous shrieking roar that rose well above the rumbling thunder in the sky above, causing all three mammals to stop dead in their tracks.

"What the bloomin' hell was that?" exclaimed Steve.

"A good reason to get out of here!" Mikey yelled urgently while turning to run.

"What an' miss out on the sight of a life-time?" cried Buck, "You gotta be joking."

"The hell are on about now Buck?" said Mikey. "Have you _ever_heard anything like that before? There's no telling what-"

"And that's precisely why we gotta go take look," Buck interrupted excitedly.

"What!" the other two exclaimed in unison.

"You know I'm usually with ye' on everythin' bud but this time I've gotta agree with Mikey. Why would anyone want to go look for trouble when trouble makes a sound like that?" said Steve.

To be honest even Mikey was surprised about that one. Steve wasn't usually one to back down on a chance for some serious discovery, but it was good to know that at least one of his mates drew the line at potential brutal evisceration.

"Oh come on fella's ya' not gonna back out on me now are ya'?" Buck asked with a positively disappointed look on his face.

"Oh don't even try the those puppy-dog eyes on me now, by the sounds of that thing I'd be lucky to get out of there with my face still attached," Steve argued, but no real avail since the weasel still put the eyes on anyway. "Oh for God's sake, if you don't put those away in two seconds I swear I will claw them outa' ye' head."

Another blood curdling roar echoed out of wilderness, and from the sound of things it was even coming from somewhere even closer than last time. Mikey's eyes immediately began to dart around in every direction as he suddenly began to realize just how open and vulnerable they all truly were standing out here in the open.

"You don't think it can smell us already do ya?" he asked nervously.

"Not in this rain no, it'd wash our scent away in seconds," answered Steve.

"Oh listen to you's two. If it can't see us and it can't smell us then what's there to be afraid of? We just pop over for a quick look at whatever it is and pop straight out again, piece o' cake," explained Buck.

Although Mikey answered straight away with what he hoped was definitive hell-to-the-no, Steve actually appeared to pause and think it over for a few moments.

"Heh, you know I think yer' right there Bucko, there's no way it can smell us in this rain, or see us for that matter."

"Huh, see we're agreed. Now come on before it starts movin' away or we'll probably never catch it," Buck replied happily before heading off in the direction from which the roars all seemed to originate.

Of course Steve seemed only to happy to follow but Mikey on the other hand, still staunch in refusal to follow, only went after the two of them for the first few metres or so before slowing down to a stop while watching the other continue to march on ahead of him. He had already told them time and time again that danger was never his forte and yet these two insisted on dragging him into potentially life threatening situations.

'_Well not this time'_ he thought to himself irritably as he made a bold heel turn back toward what he sincerely hoped to be the entrance to this horrid place.

If it was safe they would come back and maybe give him a good scalding for being such an ungodly wuss and if it was indeed just as dangerous as he'd suspected those two idiots would probably come racing back out with some ginormous predator in hot pursuit, and after they'd managed to shake it off Mikey would be only too happy to tell them 'I told you so' with all the insufferable smugness that he could muster.

Once again a loud, piercing roar filled the air but this it was much closer than Mikey had ever anticipated and with such deafening volume that the glider was almost doubled over with pain before jamming his paws over his ears. Unlike last time however, as he gingerly removed them another roar echoed around him, no closer than last time but definitely more furious, and only moments after yet another piercing holler of sheer unbridled fury was let loose somewhere very close by only this time it seemed to go for several minutes.

Suddenly all fell silent and Mikey was left cowering in the mud for several seconds before out of no where he suddenly heard a loud quick paced thudding sound that at first he mistook for his own terrified heart-beat, but as it grew ever louder he began to make out the distinctive squelch and platter of very heavy, muddy footsteps headed in some unknown direction and at great speed.

That was it he couldn't stand this any longer, whatever was going on he didn't want any further part in it and he made the split-second decision to make a break for the cave. No matter what may stand between it and himself he knew there was no way he could stay down here one second longer, and as he sprinted desperately toward the dark round circle in the cliff edge ahead on him he could quiet clearly hear the sound of something very large and very angry somewhere close behind him but he dared not look back for the fear that whatever was pursuing so close behind him would be the last thing he'd ever see.

With one final leap as he drew close enough the glider plunged himself into the darkness of the cave, the thump of his small body against the rock quickly drowned out by the deafening crash of rock against body as something very large suddenly smashed into the cave mouth just behind him. Mikey quickly leapt onto all fours and sprinted away as fast as he could, all the while the bellowing roars of the beast echoed up the cave from behind him along with the smashing and crashing of its claws and body as it savaged the rock face in its attempts to continue the pursuit.

It was then in the following seconds when Mikey could hear the sound of the cave beginning to give way behind him that he finally decided look back at his pursuer. Although the features of actual creature itself were obscured almost completely by the billowing clouds of dust being created by the falling ceiling, he was able to make out a single pair of enormous glowing red eyes and during the precious few moments before the entrance was sealed by the debris, he could swear he had never been more terrified in his life.

Several minutes later, as he lay coughing and wheezing in the snow just beyond the exit to the surface the image of those eyes remained fresh in his mind. It was almost as if by some supernatural force they had been burned into his back of his eyes. Yet ironically all he wanted right now was to forget them, for all they brought to him was a most intense crushing grief from the thought that both his friends were still down there with them and monster to which they belonged.

With that cave gone there was no way back for them now, nowhere to run and no-one left to count on. That thing pretty much had them on silver platter, and even worse than that was the even depressing thought of what in the world was he supposed to tell Gaz?

* * *

"Uh Diego, don't you think it would be easier just to go around?"

"And get lost going the long way? Not a chance."

"So what, it's not like you know where we're going anyway."

"I have a good idea of it."

Sarah opened her eyes to a surprisingly clear view of the leafy, muddy rainforest floor as it passed quickly by with every stride of the enormous tiger paws beneath her. It was pretty obvious from her position that she had been draped over Diego's back while she'd been unconscious, probably with Crash's help considering that a quadruped like Diego probably couldn't reach his own back and the fact that one of Crash's hind-paws was dangling barely two or three inches from her face.

"Uh huh, yeah right tiger. Just go ahead and admit you're lost will ya', remember what the first step to solving every problem is," Crash quipped. "It's okay you know, I mean I can't see anything from here except a whole lot of weird plants."

"Do you ever shut-up?" Diego asked.

"Sometimes," came Crash's surprisingly curt response.

"I figured," said the tiger. "Well, while your back there, move your friend a bit to the left, her head keeps hitting my shoulder."

"Sure thing big D," Crash replied before Sarah felt someone take a very firm hold of her tail and pull, very painfully.

"Ow. Hey!" she cried.

"Hey, you're awake!" exclaimed Crash.

"I am now idiot," Sarah growled. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to pull on other possum's tails?"

"'Course but you're really heavy to push," he replied defensively.

"Whatever, just help me up."

Crash happily obliged, though probably immediately wished he hadn't when Sarah thanked him with a quick jab to gut.

"That's for saying I'm fat."

"But I didn't…"

"Actually, yeah, ya did," Diego cut in. "Thanks for moving."

For some reason it was only then that Sarah realized that Diego was actually limping a little, being careful not to put too much pressure on his left fore-leg; the exact one that Sarah's head had been flopping against.

"You okay there tiger?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Well you are kind of-"

"I'm fine," Diego answered before Sarah could even finish.

"It's just a little sprain," said Crash.

"And you would know?"

"Sarah, look who you're talking to," the possum replied, and it was a good point, Crash did have one hell of an injury record.

Sarah chose instead to focus on her strange new surroundings. On one side stood a densely packed barrier of jungle, sporting a whole range of weird multi-coloured flowers and strange looking tube shaped things which grew out from a number of broad leaved plants of an intense green hue that she had never even dreamed of. Yet strangely on the other side only about a meter or two of dry, sandy cliff edge jutted out over an enormous rocky divide that seemed to stretch on for miles with many barren, rocky plateaus reaching up from the ground below which was rendered invisible by a thick layer of swirling grey mist.

In all honesty Sarah couldn't begin to fathom the scale of this place nor the population of gargantuan beasts scattered in herds across the visible landscape, and that was ignoring the added immensity of what she couldn't see. Compared to the fantasy, the truth of this place was something else entirely. And all of it was _underground_ for heaven's sake.

"Cool huh," said Crash, suddenly jolting Sarah from her awe induced trance.

She couldn't really answer, nothing she could say could really have done it justice.

"It aint that great," Diego commented. "I know it looks nice, but really it's a deathtrap through and through. Trust me, the sooner we get out of here the better."

"Do you think anyone's gonna come looking for us?" Sarah finally managed to ask.

"Maybe," the tiger replied, "But I wouldn't count on it. Odds are we're gonna have to pull this one off ourselves."

"What about Buck, maybe he'll be able to help us out again," said Crash.

"Again, wouldn't count on it. It's been almost six years since we saw him and livin' in a place like this, well…"

"Well what?" asked Sarah.

"Do I really need to say it?"

"Hey," Crash suddenly exclaimed indignantly. "There's no way a weasel like that could die. He's just too awesome. It's like against the law of the universe or something."

Diego just chuckled, "And I don't doubt it, but that's not to say we weren't just very lucky that last time he happened to be somewhere close by when we got into trouble. There's no guarantee we can count on some kind of last minute saviour this time."

Sarah couldn't help rolling her eyes. After all of the breathless gushing about that weasel from the twins, she wasn't really looking forward to meeting Mr. Dinohunter in the flesh. Fearless, athletic, charismatic and just a little bit dangerous with some serious battle scars pretty much summed him up. Just throw in some mid-twenties, a reckless disregard for personal safety and good old thousand-yard-stare and this weasel had generic sexy written all over him, or as Sarah liked to call it, the typical female's fat-chance-fantasy.

On the other hand she'd certainly like to ask a few things about survival in a world where basically everything around you was busy plotting your murder. Stuff like that would come in handy for an animal universally regarded as nature's walking tasty-treat.

Speaking of tasty treats…

"Hey you guys know if there's anything actually edible down here?" she asked.

"What, are you hungry?" Crash replied.

"No, but I bet it's something we'll need to know when I am," said Sarah.

Crash chuckled, "Yeah Eddie said you get really grumpy when you're hungry."

Sarah rolled her eyes, if she ever did make it out of this place she was gonna give that possum a serious talk about the limits of sharing in a relationship.

"Last time we were down here Buck showed us these weird purple things and told us not to eat 'em," Crash continued. "Me and Eddie tried 'em anyway. They taste really weird but they don't make you sick or anything, well at least I don't think so, I can't really remember much after all the flowers started glowing. But I'm pretty sure a tree told me to stop being such a jerk when I said its leaves were too shiny."

"Uh huh, and what happened when you woke up?" Sarah asked with genuine curiosity.

"Whatdya mean woke up?" replied Crash.

"Well do any of those dinosaurs taste alright?" she asked, this time directing her question toward Diego who merely shrugged.

"I've had better."

"So you can eat 'em at least?"

"Yep," the tiger replied curtly.

'_Well I suppose that takes care of that,'_thought Sarah.

Suddenly and for no apparent Diego stopped dead and the two possums immediately fell silent.

"What is it?" Crash asked, instinctively whispering as he spoke.

"Not sure," Diego replied quietly as he began to crouch very low to the ground, "Get off and wait here."

"Why, what's going on?" Crash asked as Sarah started nervously scanning the surrounding foliage.

"Just do it," the tiger responded with a growl and the two possums each knew better than to ignore him.

"Where are you going?" asked Sarah, as they both hopped down into the leaves below and Diego very slowly rose to a low stoop.

The tiger only responded with a piercing glare towards the two them of them, and they immediately set off to hide somewhere as he'd ordered without any further questions.

"What's your take on it?" Sarah asked Crash once the two of them were out of earshot.

"Heck if I know, but I bet there's a good reason. He's a bit like Manny that way, if he tells you do something you just listen to him," Crash replied, stopping at the base of densely blossoming tree. "This looks pretty good."

He immediately grabbed hold of the trunk with his claws and began to climb up. Of course Sarah followed eagerly, she hated being out in the open when things got tense, and as she climbed out onto another branch not far away from Crash's she was very surprised to see him grabbing some weird green things that were growing in tightly packed bunches around the flowers.

"What the heck are you doing?" she asked.

"You started talking about food and now I'm hungry," the possum replied matter-of-factly.

"Do you even know what that is?"

"Babe I don't even know half of the things I eat up _there_," said Crash before biting off one of the ends and offering another to Sarah who promptly refused with a disgusted grimace.

"God Eddie is soo lucky I met him first," Sarah mused quietly her voice laced with sarcasm.

"I thought I was first?" Crash asked through a mouthful of whatever the heck fruit it was.

"Yeah I was trying to forget that."

Crash's ears began to fall in shame and Sarah immediately attempted to backpedal as she noticed the strange look he was giving her while he finished off the first alien fruit and moved to take a bite out of a second one.

"Okay I think I phrased that wrong," she began, stuttering slightly as she considered exactly how she had meant to phrase it and grabbing the fruit he was still offering as what she hoped was a sign of peace. "I wasn't saying you were bad or anything, alright. It's, well, you see it's just that when I get angry I sometimes say stuff I really shouldn't say, like that you have really bad BO or I slept with your brother or I hate your taste in home decorating. Heh, heh, so erm…" she paused to take a bite out of the tuber which presented perhaps the most bitter-sweet taste she'd ever experienced, with a distinct burning sensation on top of it. After swallowing the thing and subsequently gagging a little she decided to continue. "So you see I thought that if I, you know, forgot about it I might say something a little less, uh, break-up making."

Crash continued to stare at her, but after a few moments Sarah suddenly noticed a small weird smile starting to creep across his face.

"What?" she asked with a smile of her own, only hers was over the weird look he was giving her.

"Nothing I just… never realized how shiny your eyes were. I mean seriously they're really, really shiny, and brown too, really brown like a wet stone covered in- covered in brown."

"What?" she asked again perplexedly before Crash continued almost as if he hadn't heard her.

"Wow you're really funny looking, you know that? Eddie said you're really hot but I think you're more like a fuzzy jelly-fish all wobbly and… woah could ya' stop staring your eyes are hurting _my_ eyes."

"The heck?" exclaimed Sarah.

Despite his prior objection Sarah did continue to stare at Crash, intently, and not just because she'd suddenly noticed just how large his pupils had grown but also because she found that she just couldn't stop. It was weird, like all she could do was stare into those enormous black whirlpools, spinning and spinning and swirling and… wait since when was everything so bright? Seriously it was as if someone had found the magical dial for the sun's light output and jammed it up to thousand.

She immediately dropped the weird green fruit she'd been holding. After all her eyes may have been swimming in a sudden explosion of blinding bright, swirling colours but at least she was still sane enough to think and speak in something more fluent than incomprehensible strings of non-sequiturs.

"I-i-it wasn't the purple ones was it?" she asked to no-one in particular, although to her surprise a very weirdly clear voice did in fact reply.

"Whadya mean they're not purple?" Crash asked. "Everything's purple, you're purple. Hey yo-you look really funny like that…oooh whoa, wait, you wanna do something fun?"

Although Sarah wanted really badly to say 'hell yeah,' or at least something along those lines for no possible reason she could fathom she was far too busy noticing just how awesome the flowers were, flitting around like little white butterflies. It was kind of distracting that the weird brown thing kept touching her face though. Well her face or her paws she couldn't really tell.

"Hey, hey you know what?" asked a voice that she really could have sworn she knew from somewhere. "I think I've got fur, that's really weird I… I… oh wait no that was you. You're a lizard aren't you?"

Well she did feel kind of cold, and lizards were cold blooded so yeah she probably was but then they didn't need to know that. Being cold blooded was quite a personal thing.

* * *

Following a good scent trail amongst all this dense jungle was proving incredibly difficult. So far it had been almost three hours and Mikey hadn't really come all that much closer to finding the lost trio. In fact he'd managed to lose the trail just about every twenty steps or so thanks to all the god damn mud and his utterly woeful sense of direction. To be honest he was really starting to regret the decision to go looking for them in the first place.

For one thing Diego was tiger, a big surly killing machine with giant possum sized paws and teeth big enough to gore a mammoth to death. What did Mikey have? Sixteen rather pointy claws and a less than reliable nose.

Of course he probably would have felt a lot more at ease if he was able to glide around through the trees, but since the tiger was a land based mammal and the two possums would probably have stuck very close to him their scent trail was detectable only from the ground.

Thankfully the glider hadn't run into to any serious trouble yet, but he had had a few close calls with some surprisingly mean herbivores. Well at least he thought they were herbivores, those three giant horns on the head and nose certainly told a different story.

Now as he sat idly against a fallen tree log, Mikey was pretty stumped as to what to do next. He could have sworn their scent trail was leading off somewhere to the east toward the cliff line that was barely visible through the trees, but now he'd picked up a different, wildly unfamiliar scent with a much more recent trail that lead off in the same direction. Normally such a thing wouldn't have bothered him, but from what little he knew about this place any strange scents or footprints were to be treated with extreme caution, lest you find yourself being torn limb from limb by a pack of ravenous lizard monsters.

The weird part was that the new scent actually possessed a very pungent aroma of mammal. Certainly no mammal he'd ever smelt before but all the signifiers were there.

"Can I help you friend?"

Mikey jumped with surprise and immediately spun around to face whoever, or whatever, it was who had just spoken to him. To his immense surprise he found himself staring directly into a pair of bright green eyes belonging to a jet-black feline of whose species he had only ever seen once before almost thirty years ago and what was more surprising was that this black panther made no attempt to hide itself, choosing instead to stand right out in the open where he could see it all too clearly.

"Sorry, if I startled you. I tend to have that affect on people," the very obviously male panther continued. "I was just wondering what such a small creature as yourself would be doing down here all by his lonesome. Don't you know this is dinosaur territory?"

"Only too well mate," Mikey replied, relieved to have finally found something that wasn't actively trying to kill him.

"Well would you mind telling me why? Coz I damn sure didn't see anyone offering guided tours. "

"Yeah I'm actually lookin' for some mammals actually. I know they fell down here somewhere and I got into my head to go lookin' for 'em," Mikey answered only too willingly, after all it wasn't like he could be picky about who to trust down in this place. If he found anything that had managed to evolve the power of speech he would gladly do whatever it took to get something out it. "You haven't seen any other mammals down here have you?"

"Well it depends friend, what kind of mammals would you be looking for?" the animal answered. "If you're looking to find some hunting buddies you're not going to a find them around these parts. I've got my claim to twelve miles in each direction starting from the falls. Ripper and Scratch have the rest, and I don't recall either of them saying anything about befriending some nosey rodent."

"Uh I'm not looking for any hunters or anything, and for the record I'm not a hunter myself either." Mikey replied hastily, leaving aside the fact that he quite obviously wasn't a rodent. "I'm just lookin' for some friends who fell down here by accident."

"Now that's where you've got yourself a little problem," it replied. "You see no one comes all the way down here by accident or whatever. It's always to do with hunting or looking for couple of cheap thrills. Of them only half as many ever leave the place anyway, if you know what I mean."

At that Mikey was surprised to say the least. He had no idea that anyone would ever want to come down here on purpose, let alone that anyone other the herd and himself knew about it, and yet when he actually decided to voice his confusion the panther's reply actually made a startling amount of sense.

"You see apparently an actual dinosaur decided to take walk up on the surface a few years back. 'Course it maid a pretty nasty mess and when it went back down a bunch of mammals followed it," the panther had explained eagerly. "A lot of folks thought they were goners down there, but then guess who decided to show up again just a few days later touting a whole bunch of stories about an underground world of dinosaurs? Needless to say word spread, and when the boys at the club got wind of it we were on our way over before you could say bonanza."

"Yeah but you see, the fella's I'm lookin' for actually fell down here by accident." Mikey insisted urgently. "They weren't lookin' to get into any of this rubbish about kills and thrills. They were just a couple of mammals who went down the wrong rabbit hole alright, and now I'm down here lookin' for 'em coz their mates up there on the surface are too busy trying escape some volcano that's about it blow it's top, which by the way will probably make rump roast out of the lot of us if I can't find the others and figure out a way to get us all the hell out of this place. So if you can help any little bit at all please just spit it out or otherwise let me be on my way coz I really don't wanna wind up hot lava broiled."

The panther suddenly laughed. "You sure got some spirit short-stuff. If you weren't such a tiny rodent I might just take you up on a hunt. Heck I've got half a mind to ask you anyway, but seeing as you're in such a rush, if it helps you any I did run into a sabre toothed tiger not half-an hour ago. Seems he wasn't all that friendly about me spying him and his little buddies, and he was big guy too so when I got caught out I was happy to just leave 'em be. Not like they were doing any poaching on my grounds anyway."

"Where'd you find 'em?" asked Mikey.

"Over by the canyon not that far from here. If you look you can see the northern cliffs through trees over there," the panther pointed toward where Mikey had already seen glimpses of sandstone through the trees, having already come to the same conclusion himself minutes before. "Just head east and follow the cliff line for a few miles and you'll probably find them in an hour or two assuming they stick to the same track. Oh and when you find them you might want to tell them about the raptor nests. Those little bastards set themselves up in the caves a few months back, ya'll never make it to the surface in one piece going that way."

"Uh thanks," Mikey said quickly as he started toward the cliff-face, only too aware that for some reason or another, the panther's eyes were still glued to him. Most likely out of some kind of sick schadenfreude belief that the glider was only going to get himself killed.

"Wait a minute rodent, seeing as I've helped you I suppose it wouldn't be too much to ask something of you in return?"

With a building sense of dread Mikey looked back at the panther.

"I suppose not," he replied. "Whattya' need?

"Only a simple question," it replied simply. "During your little foray have you by any chance come across any weasels?"

"No, sorry," Mikey answered honestly.

"No need to apologize friend. It may be disappointing but that's hardly your fault, be on your way," the panther remarked with a final dismissive wave of his fore-paw.

Needless to say Mikey was more than happy to do as he was told, but honestly he couldn't help thinking was it just him or was everyone and everything down here starting to look like a homicidal maniac?

* * *

**Again I hope you enjoyed it and in return I expect only one thing: that every review for this chapter contain at least one criticism. It can be about anything; the way I write, the narrative structure, the characters, the storyline, anything.**

**Oh yeah and before I forget, that Berkley guy mentioned in chapter 6 was just an inconsequential plot device character whose name was just the first one that came to my head while I was writing it and anyone still thinking anything on his relevance to the story really should give up about now because I have long since done so myself.**


	9. Skeletons in the Basement

**You might have guessed, although probably not, that this was originally intended as a Happy Easter upload but... well I didn't finish it in time so what can I say except sorry about the wait?  
Enjoy as usual and criticize as you see fit.**

* * *

Chapter 9

Skeletons In The Basement

The evening fell upon the land of dinosaurs much the same as it did anywhere up on the frost bitten plains of the ice fields above. The golden rays of noon gave way to the yellow-green glow of dusk as it fell slowly to the many hues of blue and black that so typified the evening sky. Only down here there was no night sky, no stars and most noticeably, no moonlight, just the pitch black depths of an abyssal impersonator which at any moment seemed poised to reverse the pull of gravity and suck everything below into the endless mass of frozen darkness that loomed above. Of course the continuing minor quakes weren't really helping to dismiss this looming fear of death-by-ceiling.

As if Mikey needed one more reason to detest this place, he quickly found that merely a casual upwards glance while walking was enough to invoke a strong sensation of vertigo and intense dizziness. Although that probably also had something to do with the utter exhaustion through which he continued to trudge on in his search. Even though his eyes were heavy as stones and his entire body ached for want of rest there was no way the glider would dare close his eyes for anytime longer than a blink in this death trap. To top it all off, after having gone without a bite since breakfast he was also starting to feel the onset of nasty hunger pangs.

At least he was lucky enough not to have run into anything worse than a small pack of weedy little scavenger things, which at the time seemed far more interested in scuffling loudly with one another and Mikey had managed to sneak past them unnoticed. But as time went on he found that with every second that ticked away so too did a small portion of the incredibly good luck which had so far preserved him.

To be honest his efforts had nothing to do with any foolish notions of nobility anymore. It was simply necessity that drove him onward now and he knew it. His only chance of survival lay with finding the others, assuming they were all still roughly vertical, and after that they would then take care of the whole getting back to the surface part together because alone Mikey knew all too well that his chances of escape, let alone survival, were hopelessly small if he was left to fend for himself.

His mother had always told him his lacking sense of direction would kill him one day, and even though he'd lived a pretty long and healthy life for a mammal of his stature he'd be damned if that day was to come up anytime soon.

Despite his waning determination the glider continued his search throughout the hours of the night, yet even with the gift of clear nocturnal vision all his efforts remained as fruitless as ever. Eventually as the first rays of morning sunlight began to filter in through the icy ceiling only to be covered almost instantaneously by a sudden intense fog, Mikey finally decided to stop and rest for a while.

What was worse now was just how strong the scent of his companions had grown ever since the trail had lead him away from the ridge and into the jungle. He was close now, they couldn't be anymore than a mile or so from his position given how fresh the trail had become but no matter how badly he wanted to continue there was no way his aching paws were going to carry him any further.

As he pushed his way through the underbrush in search of somewhere relatively secluded to take a nap, he began to feel the distinct sensation of icy water droplets beginning to fall onto his fur, and just moments later the soft pitter-patter of light rain began to fill the jungle. This caused a serious question to surface in his mind; if this place was underground then how the heck could precipitation develop in such a small microclimate? This place couldn't really be that big could it? Unless the ceiling was melting a little of course, but with a possibility of the same driving rain he experienced during his short stint down here almost twenty years ago that was extremely doubtful.

Smack!

Surprised, Mikey was suddenly thrown face first into the mud as something very heavy and very hard suddenly cracked him on the back of the head.

"Ow what the hell!" he cried in a mixture of surprise and anger as he pulled his face out of the mud, but before he could even start to rub the painful, throbbing lump that was forming on the back of his head, he was forced back down further into the mud as something very much akin to a mammalian paw pressed itself firmly between his shoulders.

Before he could even attempt to react, he suddenly found his right arm being grabbed and pulled to his back where it was twisted painfully to the right by a muscular, vice-like grip. Seconds later another paw grabbed Mikey by the fur on his head and pulled his face up out of the mud, just enough so that he could breath, and perhaps talk if that was the intention.

"Ow hey, wh- what the hell do you want?" Mikey spluttered through his face-full of blinding mud.

"Not much," a growly, unamused voice replied. "Mind tellin' me what you're doin' down 'ere chum?"

'_Oh crap it's gotta be one those bloody hunters,'_ Mikey thought to himself, _'These buggers have gotta be at least twice as paranoid as they are homicidal.'_

"Hey can you hear me down there, or do ya' ears need a little unblocking?" the gruff voice asked impatiently, and Mikey suddenly felt the cold touch of what felt to be some kind of giant claw against one of his ears.

"No, no… no they don't, there fine the way they are I promise ya'," Mikey replied hastily. "Look I dunno whatcha' psycho partner might've told ya' but I'm not here for any huntin' or anything like that I swear. I'm just lookin' for some friends who got lost down here that's all."

"So… just lookin' for a couple of missing chums are we? Not huntin' any trophies, no weasels, nothin' like that eh? How can I be sure these mates of yours aren't just some hunting buddies? What if I let you go and you just run off to ya' mates to tell 'em where ya' found me so you can all come take piece. You got one finger, so why not take another… hey why dontcha's all just take the whole thing, plenty of pieces to share around then eh?"

"What! What the hell are you on about ya' maniac, I'm just here to help my friends not to mince up some paranoid loony!" Mikey cried out in desperation, "I'm just a glider who somehow got it in his stupid head to come down here into this murderific hellhole to find some dim-witted mammals who can't even tell solid ice from some huge gaping hole in the ground!"

Almost immediately after he'd finished the assailant gave a short grumble before Mikey's entire body was released and allowed to smack back into the mud with a loud splat as the creature stepped off of him. For a few moments he continued to lie where he was, dumbstruck and shaken in the mud before the other animal spoke up in a gruff, thickly accented voice.

"Well…" he began. "You gonna get up or should I go take a nap for a while and get back to ya'?"

Choosing instead to do neither, Mikey decided on the much more simple third option of rolling over onto his back to let the rain, which had now picked up to a steady shower, begin to wash away enough of the mud so that he could actually see who was standing over him. From what he could tell it was a tall, athletic looking weasel whose fur was coloured a creamy yellow hue on his belly, chest and chin and a solid rusty red everywhere else. Looking at his body several streaks of white and grey marked numerous superficial scars but none of them drew more attention from Mikey than the weasel's one-eyed scowl, his right eye being covered by a tightly wrapped leaf that was starting to show hints of brown around the edges. As he continued to stare the weasel suddenly gave Mikey a half-amused grin, which only served to highlight the guy's prominent lower canines that still seemed to show even when his mouth was closed.

"That bonk on ya' head must have knocked out some of ya' brains eh? Here…" The weasel stretched out a paw which Mikey thought it only courteous to accept, taking note of the small nub where the middle digit should have been, and allowed himself to be pulled back to his feet. "Name's Buck, sorry I had to rough you up a little there, but things have been getting' a little tense down here since Ms. T brought that sloth down a couple years back. A fella' like me can't be too careful around you topsiders types anymore."

"What? Those hunter boys gotcha number or somethin'?" Mikey asked.

"Damn right they do," the weasel replied with a grin. "You'd think they'd be happy with one finger but no, it aint the same deal with them, they want the whole thing; head, shoulders knees and toes." Buck paused for a moment, giving Mikey an apparent once over with his eye. "What do they call you up there?"

"My name's Michael, most people call me Mikey, or just Mike but I like Mikey better so it'd be great if you'd stick with that one," the glider replied.

"So lookin' for some lost mates ya' say? How long did you say they were down here again, coz not a lot of mammals manage to survive down here for long. 'Part from the ones who go running straight back out with their tail between their legs that is," and for some reason Buck sent quite a lingering stare in Mikey's direction after that one.

"Well I don't think I ever said anything about it but they fell down yesterday afternoon so they've only been down here about a day," he replied.

"Hmm, and how many of 'em?"

"Three, no, two possums and a tiger."

Buck suddenly began to grin rather broadly, and at that Mikey wasn't quite sure whether to be thankful or nervous.

"I think you'd better come with me," Buck finally replied, and began to turn and walk away into the underbrush gesturing for Mikey to follow.

"Why, do ya' know where they are or are ya' just wasting my time?" Mikey asked, although this time it was his turn to smile, "Mullet?"

Buck suddenly froze in his tracks and began to chuckle as he asked, "What's rule number one?"

Mikey stared as the weasel turned back toward him with yet another broad, toothy grin plastered across his face. "Al-always listen to Buck?"

Buck replied with a sudden bought of laughter which soon subsided enough for him to ask, "Alright, alright who put ya' up to this eh? One of those three? I swear those fella's have had it in for me ever since I strangled one of 'em."

Mikey couldn't help taking a step back at this new, and quite unnerving development.

"Wh-who are you talking about? You mean you killed someone and…"

"Course not, skulls are already dead, ya' can't kill 'em twice. Mind you it would be nice if they could shut up an' let me get a word in for once but no, they just talk n' talk n' talk, and whenever they're not talkin' the ruddy bastards are thinkin' of new pranks to pull on me. I mean it was fun at first, but that beehive was not funny, and neither is this so just tell me Mike, if that is your real name, which of 'em put you up to this? It's alright ya' know I just wantcha to help me get 'em back."

Okay Buck now looked positively insane with that smile he was wearing now. Long lost friend or not the poor guy had definitely gone off the deep end, and right now there wasn't a whole lot Mikey could think of to snap him out of it. Still there was probably no harm in telling the truth.

"Would it help ya' any if I said I wasn't part of any beef you've got with the, um, skull things." Mikey answered nervously. "I'm being honest here, I mean I don't know if you remember or not but that's what you always used to say whenever I felt like backin' out of somethin'. Rule number one, always listen to Buck. Never steered us wrong before and I'm pretty sure you're on the level now, just like me. So you can trust me when I say that I don't know your friends, I don't work with 'em and I never really wanna meet 'em if that's alright with you."

In an instant Buck's smile fell away and was replaced by one of the most piercing stares Mikey had ever experienced, and coming from somebody with only one eye that was really quite an achievement.

"Mikey?" he asked, as he took a few steps forward and proceeded to poke Mikey rather roughly in the stomach. "Really is you isn't it, Mikey. The original wet-tail himself."

"Oh stop," the glider replied sarcastically, and he was relieved to see Buck chuckle at this.

"So, not dead after all eh? I gotta say that's quite an improvement over… well everything else."

"I could say the same to you Bucko, though I can see you've had a few more close calls since then."

"Hah, you don't know the half of it."

"I'm sure I don't," Mikey replied with a small laugh. "No doubt Steve has his fair share of the other half eh?"

Although Buck's grin was only partially removed by this last comment his one eye seemed to betray certain thoughts that for such a forlorn expression could never have been pleasant ones.

"Tell ya' what, how about I show you to ya' mates and then if ya' still wanna know the answer to that one you can ask me then."

"Ok, sure," the glider replied, although he had a nasty feeling that he already knew the answer.

To be honest it wasn't really that much of a shock. After all, for last seventeen years he'd believed that both Buck and Steve were already dead, and frankly finding just one of them alive was still pretty much a miracle in and of itself. For that reason it was this far more pleasant thought on which Mikey chose to focus as he followed Buck in scampering away on all fours through the underbrush.

"What's the matter, let ya'self go a little up there Mike?" Buck remarked after the first several metres by which time Mikey was really starting to feel the full effects of his fatigue.

"Hey rack off mate, I've been hiking my arse non-stop up and down this hole for almost a day and half," Mikey replied, as he scurried hurriedly along just behind him. "I'd like to see you pull something like that."

Perhaps it was just the exhaustion or maybe the whole thing just hadn't sunk in quite yet but either way he couldn't help but feel that he should be a lot more excited about finding one of his lost mates.

Ahead he distinctly heard Buck laughing, "Whatcha think I've been doin' all this time?"

"Rotting quietly in the ground," the glider replied.

"Hah, not yet I'm not!" the weasel yelled back enthusiastically.

Mikey couldn't help chuckling a little; it was great to have him back. Whenever times got tough, and no matter what you do the only outcome seemed nothing but hopelessness and failure you really need someone with a larger than life attitude like Buck. People like him just never seemed to have the time to contemplate their own mortality, and for that the mere concept of losing out was a completely foreign one. Perhaps it was just the product of such a carefree upbringing, who knows, all he cared about was that the weasel was still alive and still permanently positive.

Soon after however, Mikey quickly found himself far too breathless to speak. Even though Buck made numerous attempts at conversation the glider merely returned them all with an exasperated stare. All he wanted to do right now was find the morons who had first gotten him into this mess, and finally take that nap he so longed for. Getting up to speed with the weasel was going to have to wait. Fortunately the remaining distance wasn't far, couldn't have been much more than half a kilometre away. Nevertheless any further travel was well and truly out of the question by the time they had pushed their way through the last of the shrubbery and begun to circle a small rocky outcrop behind which Buck assured him his friends were waiting. Sure enough, despite his vision being blurred beyond comprehension with exhaustion, the first thing Mikey heard was the familiar light tone of a voice that if this incident was any good indication, he was quite sure he would eventually grow to despise.

Unfortunately whatever that voice had said would pretty much remain a mystery to the glider since after the first few syllables reached his ears he simply allowed his own exhaustion to take hold and promptly passed out in the mud with loud splat.

* * *

"Huh, I guess it'll have to wait then." Sarah mused out loud to herself as she sat back against Diego's side while watching as Buck and Crash pulled Mikey underneath the small crag where the rest of the group had been waiting for the rain to die down.

"Wow he's really out of it," said Crash. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothin'," Buck replied thoughtfully. "Well maybe a little bonk on the head but then that wouldn't have taken this long. I found him wanderin' around near the Great Chasm not far from where those hunter fella's hang around. Not that I can blame 'em for it, much as I'd like too. Nah, knowin' Mikey the poor guy's probably just tired himself out lookin' for ya's."

"So you guys really do know each other," Crash remarked excitedly.

"Yep, sure do," the weasel answered while walking back out into the rain and toward a group of small shrubs where he began to hastily pick away at the leaves, "Did I ever tell you fellers about the first time I ran into Rudy?"

"Well yeah, but you never said anything about Mikey or the other guys," Crash called out over the general din of the rain drops.

Having finished picking out a small bunch of the spindly bushels, Buck began to start crushing them up in his paws as he stood up and moved back undercover. "Well what can I say, Rudy ate 'em both for supper. Saw what happened to Steve with my own eyes, and believe me when I tell ya' it's a messy sight I'd sooner forget. After that I'd always guessed the same thing had happened to Mike." He paused for a moment to sniff at the crunched leaf gunk in his paw, mumbling a little to himself before continuing with a satisfied grin. "It's all pretty messy business and I normally like to skip to the good bits meself."

"The good bits being you getting swallowed whole by a fifty foot monster and somehow surviving by tooth, claw and blind luck?" Diego commented.

"Hey don't be like that Diego, you thought it was awesome too. Remember diesel weasel?" said Crash, to which Diego replied with a chuckle and a sheepish half-smile. "Hey Buck, what are those, some kind of wake up thing for Mikey?" The possum pointed at the now pretty well mashed leaves in the Buck's paw.

"What? No these'd kill ya' if you tried to eat 'em," the weasel replied as he sauntered over to the tiger. "But if ya' crush 'em up and spread 'em on ya' skin it makes the whole area numb to the bone. Great for all those little knocks and scratches, and it's also pretty handy if ya' feel like a bit o' little solitary company, if ya' know what I mean."

Sarah couldn't help giggling a little to herself at that, but Diego looked far more confused as to why Buck was walking over to him with a pawful of the brown-green mush, but when the weasel started to slather a small amount over the tiger's slightly swollen shoulder his expression changed rapidly to one of mild embarrassment. "Uh, do ya' have to do that?"

"Why not quadruped? I'd like to see ya' try to do it yourself." Buck replied as he finished up and walked back over to the edge of the cover to wash his paws off in the rain. "Just give it a minute and you'll be glad I did."

Sarah heard Diego grumble something to something to himself but she wasn't able to here it over Crash's asking, "Hey Buck, what happened to your knife?"

"Now that is a long story," answered Buck. "You see…" The weasel was cut short by the sound of moaning coming from Mikey as he suddenly began to stir from his unconsciousness.

"About time Mikey," said Sarah.

The glider sent a bleary eyed stare in her direction, "Like you can talk," he quipped in with a weak grin. "Okay how long was I kissing the mud?"

"Only a couple of minutes," she answered.

"Oh, Buck?" Mikey stammered as he suddenly noticed the weasel. "So I wasn't dreamin'?"

"Depends on what we were doin'?" The weasel replied a little mockingly.

"Nice to see you haven't changed much," said Mikey. "You fella's got anything to eat coz I forgot to pack lunches."

"Not here no," Sarah replied, "But I guess we could look for something once the rain dies down."

"Pfft," Buck scalded, "Little rain never hurt anyone."

Sarah huffed indignantly, "Well makes it hard to find stuff that's for sure. I'd sure like to see you find anything even remotely edible out there in that hurricane."

Buck rolled his eye. "Hardly a hurricane," he mumbled as he strolled unconcernedly out into the downpour before dropping to all fours and disappearing into the underbrush.

"What the heck is that loony doing now?" she asked to nobody in particular.

"Normally I'd say he's gone to get something to eat, but with him it's sometimes hard to tell," said Diego. "At least he was right about that green stuff. "

"Hey wait he didn't tell me where his knife went!" Crash exclaimed suddenly.

"He'll probably tell you when he gets back," the tiger replied.

Sarah looked over to Mikey, who was still sitting calmly against the rock face but was now sporting a slightly dazed grin. Right now there were quite a lot of questions that she was burning to ask him not the least of which being that if he and Buck had really become separated over some major squabble several years ago, why did the two of them seem so friendly now? Why did he seem so intent on denying the possibility that his friend might still be alive? And for that matter what the heck happened to the other two he'd mentioned, and why did their existence seem to alternate so drastically whenever she or one of the twin's had asked him about it?

Before Sarah had managed to figure out a good way to ask however, it was Mikey who asked a question, "So how did Bucko run into you guys?"

"Uh," Sarah began rather unhelpfully, sharing a nervous sideways glance toward Crash. To be honest this was definitely a question she was rather hoping to avoid.

Unfortunately for them both however, Diego didn't seem to share the same reservations.

"He found 'em both sky-high on some sort of green bulby things," the tiger began, and Mikey's gaze immediately began to shift between both of them with a quizzical grin. "I dunno how it happened but I'm sure glad I wasn't there."

"Never had you painted that way Sarah," he remarked.

"Yeah, let's just say I wasn't thinking straight," Sarah replied, her cheeks flushing warmly beneath her fur.

"Ya' kow there is a time and place for everything but dino land aint one of the best places to get hopped up on crazy fruit."

"Hey I didn't know what it was, it just kinda happened," she replied. "Besides he was the one who picked 'em."

She pointed toward Crash who instantly pointed back towards her with a snide remark of his own, and with it much bickering ensued, Deigo growling and placing his paws over his head and Mikey merely looking on with great amusement. Eventually it was a returning Buck who put a stop to it by throwing in a dead chicken sized lizard, presumably a very small dinosaur, along with a couple of assorted plant roots.

"Eat ya' words before you eat ya' food," the weasel remarked quite obviously in Sarah's direction.

"I never said you couldn't, I just said it was hard," Sarah replied, only now realising just how hungry she actually was as she looked upon the weasel's catch. Although she was quite sure that she had done nothing wrong, Buck's continued unyielding gaze forced her to apologize with a simple, "Fine, sorry. Can I eat now?"

With a triumphant look about his features, the weasel reached down and sunk his claws into one of the small dino's thighs and began to tear away a leg with a wet ripping sound, which he then threw over in Diego's direction. "And since I caught it," he began, before he flipped the creature over and tore off the other leg with a simple, "Dig in chums," as he bit down.

Well this was certainly very different to what Sarah was used to. She wasn't often presented with the opportunity to eat fresh meat, especially since Diego was the only herd member who didn't find it icky to watch, and the smell tended to hang around on a mammal's paws. However Crash it seemed, was only too eager to tear off a piece of his own and since he was alright with it Sarah was only too happy to follow suit.

Although the possums chose only to eat a few pieces before moving onto the, admittedly rather bland tasting roots, the carcass was reduced to a pile of cracked and hollowed out bones in only a few minutes, with the good hunter himself being the one to suck clean the very last of them. This was perhaps a good indication of the fact that despite their size, weasels were avid carnivores, and a fairly good reason for Sarah to be just a little nervous about badmouthing him.

"So now we're all fed, might I ask what brings you all to my little slice of paradise?" Buck asked.

"What can I say? The ice was thin, we screwed up and we fell through it," Crash replied.

"What do you mean we?" Diego asked incredulously. "It was your idiot brother who hit me with the snowball."

"I didn't tell him to do that. I didn't want him to do that, he just did it," answered Crash. "Besides you were the one who decided to…"

"Hey-hey, I didn't ask for an argument," Buck broke in. "Sounds like you all had some part in it, no point pointin' fingers when ya' all to blame one way or another." He paused to wipe his muzzle with the back of his paw. "So now you're down here, what exactly are you hopin' to do?"

"We just wanna get the heck out of this place," said Crash. "Ellie's probably got her tail in a major twist about this whole thing, and the longer I'm down here the madder she's gonna get."

"I think you're crazy hormonal sister is the least of our problems right now," said Diego. "That volcano could go off any day now and while the rest of the herd are probably hightailing it over to the mountains we're trapped down here. What the heck do you think is gonna happen to all that ice up there when that thing goes off and starts filling this place with red hot ash and molten rock?"

Sarah gulped nervously. Admittedly she hadn't thought about that too much, and judging from the equally nervous glance from Crash neither had he.

"Hang on, what's all this about a volcano?" Buck asked. "There haven't been any molten, glowy rocks down here since Lava Falls stopped flowing a few months back."

Diego gave the weasel a curious look, "How could you not have noticed, couldn't you feel all the… wait, Lava Falls stopped flowing?"

"Yep, sure did," Buck replied with a nod. "Strangest thing really. Those falls have been flowin' non-stop since I first laid eye on 'em years ago and now, for no reason at all the whole thing just freezes up and turns to solid stone. Ya' don't think it's got anything to do with this volcano?"

"No doubt about it," Diego replied. "I've got no idea how it all works but I'd bet one of my teeth that those earthquakes had something to do with it."

Buck appeared to ponder all of this silently for a few minutes before he continued in what was perhaps one of the most uncomfortably sober exchanges Sarah had experienced during her time with the herd.

"So… what's all this mean for me n' the dino's?" he asked.

"Do you want it straight or would you prefer a beautiful lie?" Diego replied, to which the weasel responded with the first genuinely solemn expression Sarah had yet seen about his features, and the tiger continued with an equally unexpected, almost understanding smile. "I guess nature wasn't gonna leave the job half-done for long."

"Aye, she can be pretty cruel when she wants to be." Buck finally spoke up with a sigh, "Still I s'ppose you fella's will be wantin' to get back to ya' mates up there on the surface before this whole place goes kablooie."

"Damn right," Diego replied. "Don't worry though, the herd will be happy to see you again… if you want to come with us when we leave."

"Heh, not a whole lot left for me to stay for," Buck replied.

"What about Rudy?" Diego asked.

Buck simply replied with a short chuckle, "Well for that I think it might be time for a bit of show n' tell."

The weasel then gazed out into the surrounding jungle, and following his stare Sarah only now noticed that the rain had pretty much stopped now, with only the occasional dripping of water between the jungle leaves to remind them of it.

Buck stood up and walked over to the edge of the crag beneath which the group had been sheltered, and gestured for the rest of the group to follow him. In only a few seconds the rest of the group were on their feet and raring to get going, driven mostly by curiosity than anything else, and with a simple, "follow me," from Buck they all set off into the jungle once again. Thanks to the rain the ground was now far softer and muddier than previously, which hadn't really been much of an improvement if not merely a different kind of insufferably mushy unpleasantness. At least now there were plenty of puddles for Crash and Sarah to splash around in and get all muddy as well as unappetizingly putrid, much to Diego's immense annoyance. Although to them the more unappetizing they could look the better, and without any sizeable dung patches to roll around in those rancid puddles were the best alternative; it was also pretty fun too considering how warm it tended to get in the underground.

Not that Sarah noticed much of it, but Diego and Buck seemed to be having quite an avid conversation, with Mikey occasionally adding a comment or two. What it was about she could only guess and being far too busy trying to outdo Crash in making crude noises with mud in her paws, she really didn't care enough to do that. Because of this, when the group finally halted in a surprisingly large clearing seemingly in the middle of nowhere neither she nor Crash actually noticed until Sarah managed to run headlong into Diego's hindquarter, getting knocked backwards into the mud.

Standing back up in obvious embarrassment, Sarah finally took a moment to look around. Of course not exactly knowing who or what this Rudy guy was she had absolutely no idea what to look for. Despite this lack if information however she had certainly been expecting a heck of a lot more than a clearing with a humungous skeleton in it, of which the only distinguishing feature was its being propped up by the remains of a tree. Well, to be exact it was only about half a tree, rising out of the ground at an acute angle and running through the skeleton's ribcage with only a small nub of the end protruding out past the backbone. Actually on second thought that was kind of interesting and a little bit disturbing now that she actually thought about it. Especially since the thing was still being held together by only a small number of sparse pockets of half-rotten gristle even though several pieces of the skeleton were quite conspicuously absent.

Of course the reaction from the other mammals was somewhat stronger, triggering an almost unanimous gasp of surprise from the rest of the group.

Sarah watched as Buck tread very slowly up to the skeleton, pausing momentarily to look at a single tooth that had been left jutting out of the ground before continuing forward to place a paw on one of the lower leg bones.

"How are ya' doin' big guy?" he asked, apparently to the skeleton which was, at least to Sarah, just a little bit creepy.

"Whoa, what happened to him?" asked Crash.

Buck sighed, "Those hunters got him, I know that for sure coz there's no way some other dino could have done something like this. The bloody mongrels cheated too, all three of 'em came after him at the same time. But even then they couldn't do it themselves with just tooth and claw, no, they went and tricked him into runnin' right onto that." He pointed upward toward the broken tree trunk that ran through the skeleton's chest. "Poor guy didn't stand a chance."

"Did you see it happen?" asked Diego.

"No," Buck replied sadly, as he turned and walked back over to the rest of the group. "I found him a couple of days afterwards run right through with that tree trunk. It was a heck of sight I can tell ya'. What's more, since them hunters couldn't take the whole thing they just tore off a few trophies for themselves. Ya' can see one of 'em took all his teeth; every single one right down to those little ones up at the back. I think the other ones took a couple of claws but without his head I dunno how they're hopin' to prove they did it."

"Are you completely sure it was those hunter fella's Buck?" Mikey asked.

"Who else?" Buck asked with a confused frown.

"Well it's just that those fella's are just a bunch of big black leopards," Mikey replied. "And those guys are pretty much of the four legged variety am I right?"

"What are you getting' at wet-tail?"

"Well it's just if I didn't know better I'd say this looks to be the work of somethin' sportin' opposable thumbs," Mikey continued. "And last time I checked those four legs like our big ol' tiger here are just a little lacking in the thumbs department."

"Are saying there might be humans down here?" asked Diego.

"Kinda' but I'm not sayin' anything's certain," the glider replied.

"Well last time _I _checked there weren't any humans down here," said Buck.

Personally Sarah actually preferred Mikey's explanation, not that it seemed all that much more likely than Buck's, there being a great many non-humans who also possessed opposable thumbs and could easily have pulled a similar feat, but having only first heard of them in the herd's stories she actually wanted to see some of these human things.

"So this is the monster that chased me off, had a snack on Steve and tried to grab some weasel for dessert?" Mikey remarked, taking a few steps forward presumably to get a better look at the skeleton.

"Aye," Buck replied.

Surprisingly enough the minute long silence that followed, although for some perhaps merely a pause for thought, to Sarah it felt more like one of those uncomfortable pauses at a get together when a new conversation topic fails to present itself and everyone just seems to have run out of things to say. However the silence was soon broken, not by any of the group member, but by a low purring sound emanating from somewhere behind them.

Fighting her more immediate instincts to flee, she took a moment to check if anyone else had heard it, and was surprised to notice that only Buck's ear's seemed perked up and alert. Seeing as this was basically the default for someone like him, and observing no further reaction from anyone else she was lead to guess it was probably nothing more than an invention of her own head to fill the silence somehow. Good thing she checked, otherwise she probably would have looked pretty stupid fleeing from…

"I hate to say it but would everyone turn around very slowly," Buck suddenly remarked.

Sarah's heart immediately began to beat very loudly in her chest, and she could feel a familiar tingle of adrenaline begin to course through her body as she very slowly turned back toward the jungle. To her immense surprise it was not in fact any kind of dinosaur that she beheld but three, medium sized cat-like creatures bearing coats of sleek black fur and some seriously vindictive smiles.

"Well what an unexpected pleasure this is," said the leader, and Sarah was surprised to hear that he had a local accent, "Our new friends, our future trophy and our old trophy all together in one location. This truly has been a week of surprises."

"Nothing's a surprise with you lot," Buck growled, as he made his way to the front of the group. "How long have you been following us?"

The panther scoffed in false amusement, "I know this may come as a surprise to you but it seems that we have crossed paths purely by chance. You see until moments ago we were pursuing a different prey when Scratch here caught a much more interesting scent."

"Scratch?" Sarah asked quietly.

"What was that possum?" the panther asked.

"Uh nothing important," she replied quickly.

To be honest she wasn't sure whether to feel afraid or not. Sure she was nervous but no more than if she were around any other mammalian predator.

"I think she was asking about your names," Mikey suddenly spoke up.

"Oh," the creature exclaimed with a short laugh. "No need to be nervous girl, it's a good question seeing as we haven't met before. They call me Stalker, this is Scratch and he's Ripper." As he spoke the panther inclined his head first to himself then to the one on his right and to the other on the left, not that it helped all that much since Sarah really couldn't make out any distinguishing features apart from that Ripper was slightly taller than the other two. Though it did make it fairly obvious these three were most likely siblings.

"I take it those are nicknames?" asked Diego, to which the panther responded with a nod.

"And you're that tiger Stalker told us about," Ripper commented.

"Name's Diego," he replied simply. "What do you want?"

"Not a very talkative tiger are you?" The same panther replied. "Just like Scratch eh?" Sarah noticed the panther on the right give a mirthless one-sided grin. "Straight to business then I guess. You wanna fill 'em in or should I?"

"You can do the honours," Stalker replied.

"Alright then we…" Ripper began but was brazenly cut off by Buck.

"…Want the weasel." He interrupted. "I get it, they get it, but you're not getting it."

Stalker scoffed again, this time he was clearly amused for real.

"I don't get it?" Crash remarked quietly to Sarah, who was equally confused.

"Guess it's gonna have to be the hard way again," Stalker remarked as he and the other two all crouched into an obvious pouncing stance with their teeth bared and claws at the ready. "Good thing too, I like it that way."

Diego immediately crouched into his own attacking stance with claws out, teeth bared and the hair on the back of his neck raised in a natural aggression display as he let out a deep menacing growl.

All three of the panthers seemed to react with immense confusion to this, and perhaps slight nervousness as only now was Sarah truly able to notice and appreciate just how much larger Diego was in terms of both height and musculature. After all they were built for agility and stealth, but a tiger was built for power, speed and even more power.

"I'm sorry if there's been a misunderstanding but we have nothing against you tiger," said Stalker. "We just need the weasel, you need not be involved."

"What for?" Diego growled.

"We are hunters of food and trophies, when we kill we savour the meat with our teeth and the victory with a token," Stalker replied. "But when it comes to the exceptional we can settle for just the token."

"Then there has been a misunderstanding," said Diego. "Food, defence, or revenge I don't care as long as you've got a good reason. A trophy is not a good reason."

The tension in the air was so thick right now Sarah could almost smell it. Well actually she could smell it; the mixed scents of aggression, fear and frustration were so rank it was about to set off her gag reflex. She was so entranced by the situation in front of her that when she suddenly felt a paw fall on her shoulder she almost keeled over with fright, but was relieved to notice that it was Mikey who bore a dead serious look on his face.

"Look fella's if this situation is really goin' where I think it's goin' I want you kids to run the moment things start to look bad." He explained urgently while backing the three of them away from the confrontation. "Don't try an' play dead coz I don't think these guys are gonna fall for it. Just run, and follow me alright?"

Both Sarah and Crash nodded nervously.

"Good on ya', I promised I'd getcha's outa' this mess and that's what I'm gonna do fella's."

"What about Buck?" Crash asked.

Mikey paused for a moment before answering, but just as he opened his mouth to answer the first word of his reply was drowned out by a deafening raw and Sarah spun around to see what had happened.

From what she saw Diego had been the one who attacked first as he was standing over one of the panthers with a paw to its throat while the others tore at him from both sides. A second later the bigger one on the left backed away to leap at Diego, knocking the tiger off balance and releasing his brother. A short lull followed as Diego leapt back onto his feet and began to pace back and forth while the panther brothers snarled and growled, before the one she presumed to be Stalker leapt forward at the tiger who wrestled only momentarily with the him before throwing the panther aside into a tree and the tiger charged toward the other two.

As he approached only Scratch remained to take the blow and the smaller Ripper sprinted around and leapt in from behind, sinking his claws painfully into Diego's back and biting into the tiger's left shoulder. This was unfortunately the injured one, as was made immediately obvious as the leg beneath collapsed and Diego was flattened against the mud by the combined weight of both Ripper and Scratch.

"Diego!" Crash exclaimed fearfully, and attempted to run forward but was quickly restrained by Mikey.

"What the heck are you gonna do for him, kill 'em with harsh language?" Mikey yelled.

"But we gotta help him!" Crash replied.

A sudden cry rang out. Of what Sarah could only guess, but fortunately what accompanied it was something infinitely more helpful and it came in the form of a single angry weasel sprinting into the fight with what could only be a very large tooth tied to a stick.

"Buck!" all three cried out in unison, with a mixture of emotions ranging from pleasantly surprised to puzzled amusement

For the first few moments he seemed to go unnoticed, as Diego continued to struggle against the two panthers but this ended quite abruptly and spectacularly as the weasel leapt up and over the fray slashing at one of the panther who immediately let out a pained roar as the impromptu knife cut straight across his back and blood began to ooze visibly into the surrounding fur.

"Come and get it!" Buck yelled at him with a smile.

The panther seemed only too happy to oblige, charging straight toward the weasel leaving his brother alone to fight Diego which immediately turned out to be a horrible mistake on his part.

Diego, relieved of the bigger of his two remaining opponents quickly overwhelmed the surprised panther despite his injury, meanwhile Buck was able to dash out of the way of Scratch's charge. Yet as the panther rounded for a second attack, a strangled, half-roared cry filled the clearing, and Sarah followed Scratch's horrified stare to where his brother lay beneath Diego. The tiger immediately turned to face the last opponent but like everybody else was only in time to glimpse the panther's tail as he made a hasty retreat into the jungle.

With that everything fell into a deathly silence.

Looking around Sarah quickly noticed that there were two panthers still in the clearing. Both were lying where they had fallen, Stalker was unconscious beneath the tree he had been thrown into and Ripper lay squirming in pain beneath one of Diego's massive paws. As the three smaller mammals approached Sarah noticed Diego certainly appeared worse for wear with the numerous gashes and bites that marred his body, particularly the areas just below his neck.

"Have you got the message yet or do I have to make a stronger example?" Diego asked his voice still strong but audibly weary from the fight.

"Trust me…" Ripper began, wincing with pain although Sarah couldn't make out any serious visible injuries. "We get the message alright. Now are we done or are you gonna make an example out of me?"

"What'd I say? Food, defence or revenge," Diego remarked as he took his paw off the injured panther and allowed him to stand up. "We're done here."

Although none of his leg's appeared to have been particularly badly wounded by the fight, Ripper only seemed able to manage a slow limp, wincing with pain as he made each step toward his unconscious brother.

"So, what about that other one?" Buck asked as he scurried over to the rest of the group, "A pansy or just smarter than he looks?"

"I dunno," Diego answered, "I guess we'll see if he comes back or not?"

"Oh trust me he's still there somewhere," Buck mused with a grin. "No point leavin' if his buddies's aint with him."

"We on the other hand better skedaddle while we got the time, that volcano isn't gonna wait for us," Mikey added. "It's better these bloody mongrels roast than us. You alright to walk there tiger? Coz if ya' not me an' Buck could have a go at carryin' ya'."

"I think I can manage it," Diego replied with small smile. "But I'm not carrying anyone."

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**In the interest of my dear readers' sanities I have decided to minimize any and all authors notes. Perhaps I'll also go back and remove them from earlier chapters as well once this story is finished.**

**I know using a line to divide the two viewpoints is unusual for me but for reasons I can't quite comprehend the document editor just won't let me do the *** thing I usually do.**


	10. Above and Below

**Chapter 10 in almost record time. Sure I know it's shorter than usual but why bother stretching things when there's no need? I hope however many of you still read this despite my atrocious lack of punctuality find it enjoyable, and as always feel free to hurl some criticism my way. Healthy, well thought out, reasoned and justified criticism, preferably with a couple of pointers on how I could remedy the issue. **

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Chapter 10

Above and Below

Sitting alone atop his sister's shoulders Eddie couldn't help but dwell tirelessly on what had happened. It had been almost a week and many miles of travel since Sarah, Crash and Diego had fallen down into the underground. He tried as hard as he could to remain optimistic about their chances, but with there being neither sight nor sound of any of them it was getting harder and harder to remain hopeful for their safe return.

Although he'd never really liked Diego all that much, Sarah had been one of only a very few females in Eddie's life who had let him come anywhere near her without cringing and slapping him if he had the audacity to so much as accidentally brush past her. What this said about her exactly was something that had never really occurred to him, like a great many things in his life he was perfectly happy with whatever he could get his paws on.

Unfortunately this in no way resembled how he felt toward Crash. Even the mere thought of never seeing him again gave Eddie a terrible sinking feeling unlike any he had ever experienced in his life. Crash wasn't just a brother. He wasn't just a wingman. Even best friend in the entire world didn't qualify. Put simply there was nothing else in the world that he could think of to describe what it was like to have someone in his life who had quite literally been there with him right from the very beginning. Sure he'd been told it was nothing more than simply being littermates but Eddie disagreed; all his life there had only ever been Crash. Without a Crash there might as well not be an Eddie.

Sure he loved his sister and his niece more than words alone could convey, and abandoning them to the boring safety and familiarity of Manny-world was the last thing he wanted to do, but if Crash was dead he'd rather be flash-fried by the volcano than spend the rest of his life moping about what used to be.

On the plus side Peaches had finally started to attempt something vaguely resembling speech. Of course most of it consisted of random syllables squeezed together into one long sentence of baby-gibberish but she'd so far managed two complete words, 'momma' and 'bubble', as well as something beginning with an 'ah' sound that was either 'ugly' or 'uncky'. Honestly it could have been both considering that she had been looking toward Sid at the time. Predictably Manny had since been focusing much of his spare time trying to teach her 'dadda', but the results had been disappointing to say the least.

The journey had so far been rather uneventful, and the persistently cold, snowy weather wasn't exactly helping to lift Eddie's mood since without Crash and Sarah, he had little else to do except hang around his sister and avoid talking to Aldora. Ever since the hawk had made clear her complete and utter apathy toward Crash, Sarah and Diego's misfortune Eddie's attitude toward her had become incredibly confusing. He felt so very sure that he should hate her for what she had said, but in reality it had left him with no idea what to feel about her or whether a simple sense of obligation really was the only reason she even wanted to help him anymore.

"Hmm guess that's just how it is without a herd," Eddie mused to himself in a whisper. "Maybe she just doesn't care because she can't care anymore. She never got another family again, that's for sure. I wonder if she even tried? I bet it hurts a lot to lose your entire family, especially if it's all in just one day; maybe she couldn't chance it again. Maybe that's why she doesn't really care about me anymore, because if she did and I still died even with her help… I don't even know what she'd feel, but I sure know I don't wanna feel like that."

"I'm sure you won't Eddie," Ellie suddenly spoke up, causing Eddie to jump a little in surprise. "Oh c'mon you're sittin' right next to my ears up there, how could I not here you?"

"Oh, erm, sorry Ellie," said Eddie.

"Don't be. I can see where your commin' from even if I've never really been there myself. I mean I know about my family thing but it's hard to miss what you never had, you know. Anyway I'm sure it'll turn out okay, for all of us. After all we've been through a flood, sea monsters, warming, freezing, dinosaurs _and_ you two. After all that this volcano ought to be a pushover."

"But we've always been together," said Eddie. "We always knew what was going on when bad stuff was going down. Now we've only got half the herd up here and half down there, and we don't even know if they're okay."

"Well yeah that is a bit of a problem, but I don't think you need to worry about it that much. I know you and Crash don't exactly have what you'd call a smooth relationship with Diego but if that tiger's still kickin' there's no way he'd let anything happen to Crash or Sarah, and with Buck down there too I'd say any dinos that mess with that bunch are in for some serious trouble."

Eddie couldn't help smiling a little."I guess so."

"See, when you put things into perspective it doesn't really seem that bad does it? And to think, all we gotta do is make sure we get our own butts up and over those mountains so we can be there to meet 'em."

A small silence followed, in which Eddie was able to hear the sound of both Sid and Manny squabbling loudly several feet ahead of them. Apparently Sid had thrown yet another snowball into Manny's rump, the powdery white residue of which he could still make out on the upper left of the mammoth's backside. From her babyish giggling, Peaches appeared to find the whole thing quite amusing but unfortunately for Sid, Manny really didn't see it the same way.

To be honest it brought to mind something Eddie hadn't really thought about that much, mostly because of the questionable survival of those concerned, but he now found himself considering the ramifications of the fact that it had been him who threw the snowball which had sparked the whole catastrophe.

"Hey El'," he finally asked, while all the time wondering why this hadn't occurred to him sooner. "You think Sarah's gonna dump me for throwing the snowball."

Ellie chuckled before answering, "Well if she's anything like me I'm sure that'd be the least of your problems."

* * *

"_Great the moment I get out of this place I am so dumped,'_ Sarah thought, as she scratched savagely at the multiple flea bites that had literally sprung up overnight and were now concentrating on some of her most sensitive areas, especially behind her ears and on her rump._ 'If there's one thing I know for sure itchy skin parasites are not sexy.'_

By the look of things Crash seemed pretty much more of the same, even going as far as to start gnawing at his own arms all the while snarling and cursing in frustration.

Both of them had pleaded to Buck to tell them if there was some kind of plant down here that cured fleas, but unfortunately and rather disturbingly, the weasel's only answer was that it was just part of tropical living and after a good long while they were sure to get used to it, and he had said it with a smile on his face!

If it was bothering Diego at all the he had made it pretty clear he had decided to suffer in silence. The tiger hadn't even scratched once nor made a comment on the possum's predicament. Although given the circumstances he probably had a lot more on his mind. As if being trailed by a bunch of angry panthers was bad enough, a painful infection from one of the bites on his already injured shoulder was certainly no small itch either. All that could be done for him was liberal application of the weird numbing plant and an occasional prick and squeeze.

The way he still managed to put on a brave face about it was all the more impressive, often being the one to continue urging the group to march on when they were tired since they couldn't afford to rest for very long. Even at night the sleep breaks couldn't last more than one hour for every two they spent on the move because according to both Buck and Diego there was no better time for an ambush than when you catch your prey sleeping. Fortunately Diego did actually take the time to grab some much needed shut-eye during their breaks, with Buck offering to take up watch just about every single time. Not that she was complaining or anything but Sarah was seriously beginning to wonder whether that weasel ever slept at all.

Ever since the first encounter with those panthers, trudging through the seemingly endless expanse of brown, green and yellow had become less of a boring monotony and more of an exercise in anxiety and paranoia. Where both Buck and Mikey seemed perfectly happy to march along ahead of everybody else, with so much concealing vegetation pressed in close on all sides both Sarah and Crash had chosen to stick very closely to Diego, trying as hard as they could to put as much distance between themselves and the surrounding bushes as possible.

"…so ya' see, when I found him an' Terry together right there in the old gum, I was just 'that's it I'm outa here' and to hell with all ya' stupid gifts." Mikey proclaimed loudly, to which Buck responded with a hearty laugh. Sarah could only guess why since she hadn't really been listening having been far too distracted by her flea problem.

"So even you fella's have 'em too eh?" Buck asked.

"Far more than I'd like," Mikey replied cheerfully.

"Ya' hearin' that boys?" Buck asked, to whom was anyone's guess, and after a few seconds he continued to Mikey who seemed far less bemused than he should've been. "Those trees aint said a word to me since you fella's showed up. I think it's coz their jealous. Pretty strange considerin' they don't give a jot about me pineapple leavin' me for some uptown potato snob. Mammals have feelings too ya' smug jerks!"

"Would never have worked out anyway I'm sure," Mikey replied. "Weasels and tropical fruit just weren't meant to be mate."

Buck sighed. "Well what about you, how's thing's goin' with the possum over there?"

Sarah's eyes almost rolled right out of her head at that. If this kind of thing was going to keep happening she was probably going to have to make 'he's not my boyfriend' the first words out of her mouth whenever she and Mikey were mentioned in the same sentence.

Mikey laughed. "Nah he's just one of Sarah's mates, uh friends I mean."

'_He!'_ Sarah sent a strange gaze in Mikey's direction, but the glider was too busy talking with Buck to notice.

"His brother's the only looker in the bunch and he's shacked up with Sarah, that's how we got to be part of the herd and part of how we wound up down here," the glider continued.

"Hmm, and here I had 'em picked for one of your type," Buck remarked amusedly. "Ya' learn something new every day, eh."

"And this commin' from a guy who recently broke up with a fruit," Mikey replied finally looking back at Sarah who despite the itching was still staring at him. "Them fleas given ya' trouble there love?"

"No, I just like scratching all my fur out for laughs," Sarah replied sarcastically.

"Ya' know if they're really bothering ya' that much you could try taking a dip in a pond or something. It always worked for me," said Buck.

"Where? There aren't any ponds around here," asked Crash.

"Now that's where ya' wrong," Buck answered. "And I can show ya' if ya' wanna follow."

"Not if it goes too far out of the way we're not," said Diego.

"Actually it should be just ahead give or take a couple hundred feet or so, besides we're about due for a breather anyway," Buck replied.

"C'mon Diego, I can't stand these things," Crash begged while still scratching furiously. "Besides, I'm thirsty and the only water we've had today was that hurl-a-rific juice from those weird blue things."

"Alright, fine," Diego finally conceded.

Despite previous experiences with Mikey's horrible sense of distance and direction, Buck's estimate of a couple hundred feet out of the way turned out to be more or less on the money. After leaving the trail, it only took the group a few minutes of uphill trekking through the undergrowth before they came upon a large rocky pond situated at the base of cliff edge. Over the cliff poured a small waterfall which served to feed the miniature body of water just as it was drained by a small creek on the far shore. Apparently it flowed further into the jungle as one of many small watercourses that joined up toward the centre to create a series of large underground lakes. At least that was how Buck described it before the possums both sprinted over to the shore to dive in, followed closely by the weasel himself with Mikey and Diego choosing instead to lie down and watch from the bank.

The water itself actually turned out to be quite cold, as Sarah immediately and painfully discovered when her body plunged beneath the frigid depths. Because of this she and Crash only remained in for just as long as it took to give themselves a good scrub down before returning quickly to the bank. Buck returned soon after they did and while the two possums chose the more traditional four-legged body shake method of drying fur, the weasel proceeded to wring himself out in a manner that looked more like a nasty spinal injury waiting to happen.

"Ah nothin' like a quick dip," the weasel exclaimed happily. "Not goin' for a swim Mike?"

"I'd rather watch," Mikey replied with a cheerful wink.

Buck chuckled loudly as he wrung himself out a second time and then walked over to where he'd thrown down his knife, picking up both it and a nearby stone before sitting down alone against a tree where he began to grind the knife's edge at an angle against the flat side of the stone, presumably with the intention of sharpening it.

At first Sarah had been rather confused as to where it had come from and how Buck had been able to produce it in such a timely manner during the fight with the panthers. She was surprised to find out that the knife had apparently been fashioned from one of Rudy's teeth which Buck had knocked out of the dinosaur's mouth during their initial confrontation. When Crash had asked him about why he'd been going without it, Buck had told them that he'd deliberately set it down by Rudy's body as a sign of respect for his long time rival after the dinosaur was killed. At first he'd managed to get along quite alright without it, but when the panther's came after him he'd been more or less blindsided without a weapon, only barely escaping with his life, losing only a couple of teeth and most of the middle digit of his right fore-paw. Although he happily pointed out that he hadn't lost an eye this time.

It was a good thing he and Mikey had finally separated having been practically glued to one another for the past two days. Probably something you'd expect from two old friends who had finally gotten the opportunity to bring each other up to speed and no one else seemed to mind it, but Buck's incredibly self-aggrandising nature was beginning to grate on Sarah's nerves. Not that she hated him or anything, he was still pretty alright in her books, but he did strike her as being quite arrogant. A larger than life attitude just didn't really fly with her, probably owing to the general consensus among possums that bravery was simply a fancier form stupidity. This didn't seem to bother Crash much though.

"How's the shoulder?" she asked as she sat down next to Diego and Crash who was busy fiddling with what looked like a piece from one of the thick, ropy vines that grew all over the jungle. Mikey was lying down in the leaves just a few feet away, and given the loud snoring emanating from his direction, it seemed glider had taken advantage of the break to catch some shuteye.

"It's been better," the tiger replied. "Did the water take care of those fleas? I don't want you two whining about it all the way back."

"I always thought we were going forward," said Sarah. "But yeah I think I'm all good now, at least for a couple of days."

"Well a couple of days is about all we've got."

"You sure? There haven't been any earthquakes for a couple of days now. Don't you think that's a little weird for a volcano that's supposed to be blowing its top any day soon?"

"I wouldn't know, I'm no volcano expert," Diego replied with a shrug. "But I do know that if we don't get out of here soon those panthers are gonna have a couple more trophies for their caves."

A short silence followed, but it was soon broken by Crash who had apparently not been listening to previous line of conversation.

"You think the other's are doing alright up there without us? Eddie's gonna be pretty torn up with me and Sarah being stuck way down here while he's gotta live with Manny no-fun and that stinking sloth."

"What about Ellie?"Sarah asked.

"She's no fun either; I think Manny's starting to rub off on her."

"If you'd known Manny for as long as I have you'd know he's actually come quite a long way in the fun department," said Diego. "And besides, what does all that make me anyway?"

"You're alright," Crash replied simply. "I mean what other possums do you know can say they're friends with a saber-tooth? And you don't try to stop us from doing stuff."

Although the tiger tried to hide it, Sarah could have sworn she saw the beginnings of smile forming at the edge of his mouth. Before he could say anything however, there attentions were called by the gruff tones of an approaching Buck who had apparently finished whatever he was doing with his knife .

"You know I don't think I've told you fella's where we're goin' yet have I?" the weasel began in a voice that was either thoughtfully amused or amusingly thoughtful.

"I noticed," Diego replied.

"I suppose you boys already know about the Jungle of Misery, Chasm of Death and all those other lovely places?" Everybody except Sarah nodded unhappily. "Well we aren't goin' that way. Instead we're gonna to be heading west into the land beyond. I think it's supposed to lead somewhere underneath those mountains ya' said ya' friends were headed for."

"The land beyond what?" Crash asked.

"This," Buck answered spreading his arms wide. "Whatever's out west lies on the other side of the Great Chasm of Mist. Nothin' ever crosses it, not even the flying dinos."

"Do you have any idea what we'll run into over there?" Diego asked with a clear level of concern.

Buck shrugged. "Not the slightest, but that's all part of the fun isn't it?"

"I guess that depends on your definition of fun, besides why can't we just go back the same way we did last t-?" Diego suddenly paused, his eyes narrowing angrily as they for some reason became solely fixed on Buck.

The weasel seemed to respond to this with a momentary cringe of embarrassment. Presumably this had something to do with yet another piece of the herd's history Sarah was not savvy to, and she couldn't help but frown. It was weird the way she could know so much about them but still know so very little, not to mention extremely worrying when her very life had become dependent on said history.

"So, uh, how big is this Great Chasm?" Crash asked. "It isn't full of weird happy gas like the other one is it?"

"I dunno to be honest; all the swirl'n grey mist tends to get in the way," the weasel replied. "Guess we'll have to find out when we get there."

"Well that's just great," Diego remarked dryly.

"Hey look at it this way, at least those leopard boys'll have a heck of time tryin' to find us down there. Oh and before we get this show on the road you all might wanna check yourselves for leeches, I just caught a couple nestin' in behind my ears." Buck suddenly continued, and upon Crash's asking what a leech was exactly he replied, "Well they're small grey-black wormy things that like to dig into ya' skin and suck on ya' blood. I dunno how they do it but ya' can't feel 'em when they bite so half the time ya' won't notice 'em till they've blown up to the size of ya' thumb."

As if fleas weren't bad enough. Just the thought of some gross, black wormy thing burrowing into-who-knows where and growing fat on her precious blood left Sarah feeling just a little sick.

"If ya' need any help checking ya' tail end I'm right here," Buck remarked as he watched the two possums begin diligently combing through their fur. "An' ya' might wanna be extra careful 'round ya' armpits coz they really like small, dark places like that. The good old wedding tackle tends to be a real favourite of theirs too, more on males than the girlies though."

"And what the heck are we supposed to do if we find one?" Sarah asked.

"Nothin' unless ya' got a pawful of salt handy," Buck replied. "If ya' try to pull 'em off you'll probably just wind up with half of it still stuck in ya', which can get pretty nasty I can tell you. Don't tell wet-tail over there, but the poor guy wound up with two of the nasty little blighters stuck to his butt for two and a half days. Not a pretty tale I can tell you."

"And on that note I guess we'd better get going," Diego remarked. "When you two are finally done dealing with you parasite problems, one of you might wanna wake up the Mikey, unless you want to use him as bait to slow those panthers down. He might actually be useful then."

As true as that last comment may have been, Sarah still took the time to rouse Mikey before the group set off again. After all, he had made it his business to try to save them even if he wasn't very good at it so he earned some respect if only for the effort.

* * *

**By the way to all those budding authors out there, reading your work aloud does help quite a lot when it comes to editing. It slows you down and really gives a clear feel of how your sentences flow. In case you're wondering yes that is exactly what I did, and shall keep doing from this chapter onward so let me know if you notice any marked improvement or, God forbid, decline. **


	11. Crossing the Great Chasm

**Here's chapter 11 at last. Sorry it took so long but quality takes time especially when my quality assurance staff, i.e. my lazy, lazy brother, takes around three days or more to "get around to it". Seriously though I hope you enjoy it and I'm very sorry for the wait. As always I look forward to the reviews, and even if you don't R&R thanks for giving it a read anyway.**

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Chapter 11

Crossing the Great Chasm

Sarah could do nothing but gawp stupidly at the scale of what lay before her, standing on the final inch or so of a precarious cliff edge overlooking a chasm for which impossibly huge was probably an understatement. The enormous gap must have been at least a mile and a half across to the opposing wall which rose even higher than the one the group were standing on, blocking any decent view as to what lay on the other side. Even worse there was no telling how deep the chasm went as a thick, swirling mass of pale grey mist obscured everything more than fifty feet beneath the cliff top.

"You want us to cross _this_!" Sarah exclaimed.

Over the roar of the wind howling in her ears, she could have sworn she heard someone laughing, and it was probably Buck. Now Sarah was able to put up with quite a bit from the deranged mammals she'd only just met but suicidal lunacy was about where she drew the line and although she'd only known him for less than two days this weasel had just succeeded in crossing that line twice. Of course the first time was debatable as Buck being mercilessly hunted by three homicidal panthers didn't seem all that intentional.

"Impressive isn't it," the weasel replied happily.

"How big is this place?" Crash yelled over the roaring wind.

"Big enough," Buck answered. "You fella's wanna get out before that volcano blows? This is the only way."

'_It damn well better be,' _Sarah thought to herself angrily. _'Coz if it isn't I'm gonna wring that weasel's scrawny neck till his eye pops out.'_

"So supposing we make it all the way down to the bottom of this thing," she heard Diego ask. "How are we supposed to get back up on the other side? You said you didn't know what was over there so…"

"So? I've never been all the way down there either," Buck pointed into the ravine. "But where's the fun if ya' already know?"

"In surviving maybe," said Sarah.

"Huh, why survive when ya' can live," Buck cheered back as he approached the very edge and peered down into the cloudy abyss. "Hey Mike ya' think ya' can glide down there and take a little peek for us?"

"In this wind?" Mikey exclaimed just as a particularly powerful gust blew by, knocking both possums off balance and into Diego's side.

Getting back to her feet while brushing dust from her fur Sarah could hear Buck reply and although she couldn't make out what he'd said over the wind a raised middle digit on Mikey's left forepaw appeared to be the rebuttal.

When she turned to talk to Crash about his opinion she was surprised to see he was walking over to the cliff edge.

"What the heck are you doing," she asked as she caught up to him.

"Just checkin'," he replied.

For want of something more helpful to do Sarah decided to join him in peering down into the misty depths. Below she spotted a small group of some kind of lizard-bird things diving in and out of the sea of white a few hundred feet away from the canyon wall.

"What are those things?" she asked.

"I dunno what they're called," Crash answered. "But me and Eddie got to fly on one when Buck pushed us off a cliff to save Sid."

"I guess I had to be there huh?"

"Yeah probably," he replied while continuing to gaze downward into the chasm. "It's pretty steep but it's still got a good slope and there's plenty for us to hold onto. I bet even Diego could climb down there."

"I dunno, on a good day I suppose but in his condition I wouldn't be so sure," Sarah mused aloud.

"Well it's not like we have much of a choice," said Crash. "It's either this or the volcano."

"What about the wind?"

"We'll just have to hold on really tight I guess. Besides, those guys don't seem have a problem." He pointed toward the small flock of lizard-birds.

"I guess," Sarah replied with a shrug as she leant back from the edge and looking into Crash's eyes as they met hers with equal apprehension she couldn't help but sigh. "We're gonna die down here aren't we?"

"Probably," he answered. "But we've got Buck with us and that's gotta count for something right?"

Before Sarah could reply a loud, rather growly voice suddenly cried out from behind her giving her a jolt of surprise. Upon turning to face the weasel responsible she quickly noticed that he now had a very long length of thick, ropey, jungle vine coiled around his left shoulder.

"Now's no time to be wastin' when we've got a natural disaster breathin' down our necks!" Buck yelled determinedly over the continuing harsh gale. "You boys wanted to get out in one piece and in one piece we'll get out, as long as ya' all just clam up and follow the rules, starting with rule number one."

"In our defence you did say you just made them up as you went along," said Diego.

"Pfft, technicalities," Buck remarked with a grin, before walking over to join Crash and Sarah at the edge of the cliff. "You kids don't mind a little adventure do ya'?"

"Depends on what you mean by adventure," Sarah answered.

Crash smiled broadly. "As long as you're with us I'm up for anything."

"That's what I like to hear!" Buck announced happily before beginning to uncoil the length of vine which unravelled to quite an impressive length. "Now before we go down we'd better get tied up coz it'll be easy to get lost in that mist and we don't want anyone gettin' separated down there do we? There's no tellin' what we're gonna find and ya' don't wanna find yourself alone when ya' do, so just pick a spot and wrap it around ya'self nice and tight."

Although she knew where this was leading and she damn sure didn't like it Sarah did as she was told and grabbed up the nearest section of vine just behind Crash while Mikey helped Buck in tying a vine around Deigo's middle. By the time the group had finished Buck wound up as the lead with Mikey just behind him, Diego standing somewhere in the middle with the possums at the back.

Once everybody was ready, or as close to ready as any animal could be given the situation, Buck began to lead the group toward the edge of the cliff and as the group crossed over the precipice to begin what was sure to be a long and likely fatal trek to the bottom of the chasm Sarah distinctly heard him cry out enthusiastically over the wail of the wind, "Onward to adventure mammals and if we die, bullocks to it all at least we had some fun!"

Perhaps she could still take heart in the fact that at least one of them was able to find the fun in all this.

Although it took about half an hour of non-stop climbing Sarah was surprised to notice that the wind quickly fell away as the group managed to finally reach the top of the mist layer. Why was anyone's guess but at least it solved the problem of how the fog managed to stay so thick despite the cyclonic gales above.

It was actually kind of hypnotising the way it seemed to swirl and flow like a big white river of frost down the canyon and out of sight beyond the bend. It was also quite scary knowing that to reach the other side they were going to have to climb down through it to the bottom where any number of strange, unknown horrors could be lurking within and a simple tug on the vine that bound them could signal the coming of a grisly fate for everyone.

Even Diego seemed quite uneasy with the prospect and Crash was literally shaking with fear. To be honest Sarah also had a pretty bad case of the nervous shakes herself, and with good reason. Buck seemed to be the only group member not currently quaking with apprehension, if anything his expression seemed more of stout alertness. Sarah, like most possums would have, held no admiration for such bravado and so still maintained that as soon as they reached the surface, assuming they ever did, she would endeavour to put as much space between herself and that suicidal weasel as possible.

Plunging forward into the mist the entire group was suddenly enveloped in a curious warmth and intense humidity which she could already feel beginning to condense on her fur making it uncomfortably damp and strangely sticky. Despite her discomfort however she remained silent and continued to follow the pull of the cord, unable to make out anything more than the blurry dark outline of Mikey's enormous bushy tail just a short distance ahead of her.

Climbing down even further, as the mist became dark Sarah began to notice a strange smell in the air. It was a kind of pungent cloying odour not unlike the smell of rotting leaf litter in the forest above only mixed with several other harsh, powerful scents mostly akin to varying forms of decay especially that of animals and plants. The picture it most strongly brought to her mind was that of the fresh water bog near where she'd grown up and into which she and her siblings had often ventured to play games and sample some of the weird grubs and insects that lived in the area. Strange that somewhere so far away could remind her so much of her childhood home.

"Uck," she heard Mikey exclaim ahead. "What the heck is that stink? Smells like a swamp."

Suddenly she heard some very loud sniffing all around her before the group suddenly came out of their collective stupor and finally started to speak.

"It smells like some kind of marshland to me," Diego remarked from somewhere just ahead.

"What's the difference?" asked Crash.

"Not a whole lot," Mikey replied. "Ya' find marshes around the coast, swamps wherever there's water and bogs wherever there's water and no place for it to go. They all smell like dung, full of sink holes and ya' go nuts if ya' stand around breathin' the air too long."

"You still believe that old rubbish, Mikey?" Buck exclaimed. "I spent a good three days in a bog up there in the jungle and I'm right as rain."

"Three days?" the glider asked in a puzzled manner.

"That I remember," Buck answered.

"That around the same time you got married to the pineapple?" Diego asked.

"It's where we met actually," the weasel replied, and although she couldn't see his face Sarah could easily assume it was with a nostalgic smile.

"Well that's just fantastic," Mikey remarked wryly.

"Oh it was," said Buck, clearly ignorant of his friend's sarcasm.

"Yeah and let's not spoil the magic by going any further," the glider suggested, and fortunately for everybody Buck appeared to agree.

As the group continued further the smell continued to intensify to the point that it was becoming a little too much even for Sarah, and possums were notorious for their tolerance of odours most animals found utterly repugnant. The fog also began to thin out and by now it had reached the point that she could easily make out the expressions on the faces of those close to her. All the others except for Crash bore crinkled noses and brows, the universal face of revulsion. In the possum twin's case it was sometimes a little more difficult to tell since his nose was always a little short and crinkled thanks to an incident neither he nor his brother could seem to agree upon.

"Well well, looks like you were right all along Mikey," Buck announced loudly as the incline finally began to level out and the mist thinned enough for the group to clearly see several feet ahead.

At first Sarah wasn't able to see what Buck had meant but as the group moved forward the ground beneath her paws suddenly began to soften and she felt the awkward squelching of warm mud.

"Now we know what's down here at least," commented Diego.

"Huh, ya' know with all the water down here this place isn't really much of a chasm is it? It's really more of really steep ravine," Mikey began before the tiger abruptly cut him off.

"And I'm we could all be forgiven for not wanting to hear you detail the difference this time," the sabre growled.

Mikey immediately began pouting at having been interrupted in such a rude manner, but unfortunately for him the others were all with Diego on that one.

"Great," Sarah exclaimed unhappily. "Hey Crash remind me to kill your brother when we get back."

"It's not that bad," the other possum replied. "Sure it's a bit mushy and stinky but it's not like the ground's gonna jump up and eat us."

"The possum's right ya' know, a little mud never hurt anyone," said Buck. "Besides with that stink and this fog there's no way anything can smell us or see us."

"Famous last words," Mikey remarked with a sneer.

"Oh yeah, that. Shame ya' can't pull a runner this time eh?" Buck replied in a manner which seemed nothing more than a light-hearted quip but given Mikey's reaction it must have held more malicious connotations that Sarah was not savvy to.

"Look let's just concentrate on getting to the other side as fast as we can," Diego finally spoke up evidently foreseeing the argument that was sure to follow. "This place is perfect for an ambush and I don't wanna hang around to get jumped while we're all tied together like this."

"Good point tiger," Buck replied, before suddenly taking his knife to the vine and cutting himself loose. "Feel free to do the same, it's not like we need it anyway."

Although Sarah wasn't quite sure if the weasel was throwing a bit of a hissy fit or simply doling out some honest advice, she opted to do likewise by tearing the vine from her body with her claws, as did everybody else it seemed while Buck continued.

"If anybody's thinkin' about pullin' a runner ya' might wanna do it now. Don't fancy ya' chances much though."

Okay so it was a hissy fit, probably directed at Mikey who's only response was a bored eye-roll. At least Sarah felt a lot a better without the vine since it had already begun to chafe halfway down the cliff and had become quite painful by now anyway.

"No takers eh?" the weasel asked while eyeing the rest of the group. "Well then let's go, time's wastin'. And try to keep this goin' in a straight line else we're gonna wind up walkin' in circles 'til the place floods with lava."

Continuing on deeper into the swamp very little conversation seemed to take place amongst the group. Diego and Buck were probably too busy trying to keep their eyes and ears peeled for trouble, but the possums were just too scared at the thought that some horrible beast could be lurking anywhere in the mist around them just out of sight. Twisted demented creatures lusting for blood, hungering for sweet mammalian flesh, deemed too hideous by nature itself to subject upon the unsuspecting animals of the world above.

Sarah couldn't tell if it was real or just her imagination but it felt like every creak, crackle or gurgle emanating from somewhere just out of sight seemed to signal an imminent danger that forever failed to materialise. Even the croaking of toads and frogs, and the chirping of various insects sounded somehow sinister. To be honest it felt like she would go crazy from all the anxiety and paranoia this place seemed to foster.

Well at least that was true for the first half-hour or so after which she'd pretty much gotten used to the smell but definitely not the mud, which in places got right up to her waist and slogging through it was becoming quite tedious, not to mention wearing on her joints which were already aching from the long climb down. A few minutes more and she was almost hoping that something would happen just to break the monotony, and barely a second after that thought one of her paws caught on something mid-step, hanging just above the mud and she wound up face-planting in a puddle of the sticky gray mush with a small squelch.

"You alright?" Crash asked as Sarah pushed herself back onto her knees while spluttering profanities.

"It's just mud", she replied, "What's the worst it could do apart from reek like a skunk's rear-end?

Although he offered a paw to help her up Sarah refused it, choosing to do so herself before turning to see what she'd tripped over. At first nothing presented itself and in this miserable semi-darkness that was probably to be expected but as she leant in closer she noticed a very faint glimmer. At first she dismissed it as nothing but a trick of the light along with inhaling so much of this stagnant air but as she moved for a closer look the little glimmer remained constant and seemed to move along parallel to her eye-line.

"What are you doing?" she heard Crash ask from behind her.

"Looking," she answered simply before pointing towards the strange shiny line, "Can you see that?"

She pointed as best she could toward the little glint of light.

"Yeah, looks like a bit of web so what? There are heaps of spiders in places like this. It's too cold for them anywhere else except during summer." Sarah gave him a strange look and he proceeded to elaborate with an impish grin. "Most mammals are pretty scared of 'em, and some are _really _scared of 'em. Me and Eddie like to grab whole bunches of really big ones and hide in trees to drop on people and watch them freak out. It's pretty funny. I'll show you when we get back up there."

"That is disturbing on a million levels," Sarah remarked as she reached forward to pluck at the web with her claws in the hopes of breaking it. "Can't you just eat them like everyone else does?"

"Don't like the taste."

"What, how could you possibly not like them?" she exclaimed suddenly, any fleeting interest in the web now completely forgotten in the wake of this latest shocking development. "Does Eddie?"

"Well, yeah he does, but then he'll eat anything," Crash commented. "He doesn't have refined tastes like me."

"No kidding," Sarah said sarcastically.

"And what the heck do you two dunderheads think ya' doing'!" Buck's familiar growly voice suddenly yelled as he walked into view from behind the veil of fog.

"Hi Buck, sorry about the wait, Sarah tripped on something," Crash replied.

"Didn't break anything did ya'?"

"No I just tripped on this weird piece of stringy stuff," she answered, indicating the glimmering yellow strand.

With a look of distinct curiosity Buck pushed the possums aside and jabbed his knife into the ground next to him as knelt down toward the odd thread, presumably trying to get a closer look. Sarah wasn't even going to try to guess why. Attempting to understand even half the things this weasel did was quite beyond her.

"That's some real strong piece a bug string," he exclaimed after grabbing the strand with his paw and lightly tugging on it.

"You know what it's from?" asked Crash.

"I dunno some kind of spider probably," Buck answered dismissively as he stood up, grabbing his knife and leaning it back against shoulder. "Probably best left alone whatever it is. Let's get going shall we? Don't wanna keep ya' buddies wait'n anymore than you have already."

With one last look toward the source of their mildly interesting detour, Sarah joined Crash in following Buck back to where she assumed Mikey and Diego would be waiting. However after travelling only a couple of feet the weasel was suddenly stopped in his tracks with a short oomph as if he had walked into something. An obstacle apparently none of them could see.

"What is it?" Crash asked.

"Another ruddy web," the weasel replied, before taking his knife and preparing to take a slice at the thing before pausing in his motion and lowering the knife with a smile. "That's what ya' want me to do isn't it?" he continued with a small laugh.

"Who?" asked Sarah.

"It's a bluff tripwire. Normally ya'd think the little string back there was some kinda' trap designed to snag this fella an easy lunch, but in this case ya'd be totally, fatally wrong and probably some kind of daft reptile, coz that one's actually a decoy to distract ya' from this, the real one."

"So you've seen this kind of thing before?"

"Seen it, beat it, used it," Buck replied smugly. "Those stupid Dinos tend to fall for the classics, but when it comes to us higher mammals the hunter has to break out the tricky stuff. Too bad for them we're still one step ahead."

As he spoke, the weasel ducked his head and took one step forward beneath it, but as he lifted his foot to take another his paw became visibly caught on something and he promptly fell just as he finished the sentence, landing flat on his smugly grinning face.

"Clever girl," Sarah heard him remark unhappily as he pulled his face out of the mud only to later hear a loud crackling sound begin overhead just before a loosely bundled assortment of branches and twigs, large enough to bury a rhino, came crashing down on top of the unfortunate weasel.

"Buck!" the two possums cried out in unison, as they both quickly began scampering over the woody detritus that seemed to be held together by more of the strange spider silk.

"Uh Sarah!" Crash exclaimed in a terrified voice.

As she looked up from the trap, she instantly noticed one of biggest arachnids she'd ever laid eyes on; a great mass of spindly, yellow and black banded legs slowly making its way down one of the nearby trees. From its slow pace and the gleaming droplets of venom that hung ominously from each of its enormous fangs it was pretty obvious the creature was very confident in a successful catch.

Now normally she wasn't even the slightest bit afraid of any kind of creepy crawlies, but when it came the to this giant, slobbering monstrosity she was more than willing to make quite a big, screamy exception.

"Hey one of you gawking twits gonna shut ya' screamin' traps and help me!"

Sarah looked over to where the voice had come from and was surprised to see roughly half a weasel poking out from the debris, struggling in vain it to free himself. Neither possum needed to be told twice as both rushed over to see what could be done.

Along the way Sarah noticed Crash grabbing up a rather good sized looking stick and turning around to face the great spindly mass, looking back momentarily to call, "Help Buck, I'll hold 'em off for you."

Although she wasn't exactly sure how the lone possum was hoping to do that, Sarah still gave him a nod of acknowledgment before continuing over to Buck, who certainly looked a little worse for wear now, especially with his ever present eye-patch now missing.

"Nice of ya' to take notice," Buck grumbled through tightly gritted teeth.

"Sorry I was kinda distracted by the giant monster that's about to kill us."

"Don't need the sarcasm right now sweetheart," he replied through a pained grimace.

"Well fine, uh can you feel your legs?"

"Oh I'm pretty darn sure of that. Movin' 'em's the tough bit right about now."

Sarah set about trying her hardest to move away some of the larger pieces of deadwood. This was of course made quite difficult by the thick stretches of web that bound them, necessitating the use of her claws which quickly began to ache with the effort required by the surprisingly strong strands of spider silk.

"Come on you oversized bug muncher!" she heard Crash cry from somewhere behind her.

As she looked up she saw the young possum race up to the approaching spider and take a quick swat at one of its forelegs with the stick, hitting the mark perfectly and affecting a quick leap to the side as the surprised giant proceeded to do absolutely nothing about him and merely continued on a beeline toward Buck and Sarah. Things weren't going very well.

"So much for a distraction," she remarked nervously and immediately returned to her rescue efforts as the beast drew closer, continuing to ignore the possum swatting and jabbing impotently at its legs.

"Go for the eyes mate!" Buck suddenly cried out.

"What eyes?" Crash replied desperately.

"The little black, shiny things on its head!"

"What head?"

Sarah watched Buck groan, half in pain and half in annoyance as he rolled his eye and grabbed up his knife to throw it as far as he could toward the possum and his oversized duelling partner, "Just climb on and stab the thing."

At first it seemed Crash wasn't quite sure what to do with the opportunity he'd suddenly been given but as the first of the spider's legs began to land on the edge of the trap precious few feet away from where Sarah was still desperately struggling to free the trapped weasel his brain finally seemed to snap into action. Without any further hesitation he quickly leapt over to where the knife was now lying in a patch of silk, and grabbed the thing up in his paws before turning to face his opponent again. For some reason Sarah half expected him to throw out some sort of clever one liner before proceeding, but instead the possum merely clutched the dull edge of the knife in his teeth as he dove onto all fours and sprinted forward.

With a well timed leap he launched himself into the air to grab hold of one of the spider's enormous stick-like limbs, and wasting no time at all he quickly clawed his way up to the topmost joint from where he made one final leap onto the its bulbous abdomen. At that point Sarah lost sight of him and was left to hope that whatever Crash did, he did it right.

As the creature's mass began to tower over her, she soon found herself dropping all attempts at helping to free Buck and merely began to cower in front of him as she stared upward toward the two dripping fangs beginning to descend toward her. In an effort to become ignorant of her impending death Sarah closed her eyes and made several vain attempts to try and think of something happy. A strange pretence of serenity that she immediately dropped as a colossal thud forced her to open her eyes to the awkwardly spectacular sight of the giant arachnid flailing its legs violently. It was quite strange to see something writhe and stumble about while somehow remaining completely silent save for the small possum clinging to its back and crying out some kind of rodeo call.

"Hey Sarah you've got to try this someday," Crash called excitedly to his bemused comrades.

After having been staring death in the face mere moments ago Sarah found it difficult to see the fun in it. Nevertheless she was certainly quite relieved to still be breathing right now and was almost tempted to laugh as the spider began to make a hasty retreat back up its tree and Crash was sent hurtling down into the mud. Thankfully he did so with Buck's knife still clutched tightly in his paw.

A few minutes later after having sufficiently calmed down from the usual near death adrenaline high and with both possums now able to help, the weasel was quickly dug free of the debris. On first impressions it seemed he'd managed to acquire some nasty cuts and bruises from the ordeal, and was now limping quite badly thanks to several broken toes on his left hind-paw. All things considered though he was doing quite well for an animal that'd just been crushed beneath a heap of tree branches and subsequently attacked by a giant spider.

Normally Sarah would have expected a generally very prideful mammal like Buck would be somewhat averse to the idea of needing a shoulder to lean on but he seemed to be taking it in good stride. If anything it was the owner of the shoulder who seemed to have the most problem with the arrangement. The owner in this case being Crash who considered it somewhat unfair that Sarah got to hold the awesome dinosaur tooth knife while he, the conquering hero, had to bear the weight of a wounded weasel.

Of course both Sarah and Buck knew that it would be far too ungentlemanly for either Crash or himself to force a young female like her to bear the weight of an injured comrade. Not that she was finding being the honorary knife carrier all that thrilling. Crash was right, the thing really was surprisingly heavy. It had only been a minute or two and her arms were already getting tired.

"Had to be the middle of a bloody swamp didn't it," the weasel growled with a tone of mild amusement.

"You'd think being trees they might actually have a couple of leaves on them," Sarah commented. "Well look at the bright side Buck. We're all alive aren't we?

"True," the weasel said with chuckle. "Can't help but feel something's missin' though."

"It's just an eye-patch Buck, you'll get over it. To be honest you look kinda badass without it."

"More like broken ass to me," Crash added grumpily.

"Hey hey, we shouldn't be snappin' at each other like some lousy reptiles when we should be celebratin' our great victory over the dreaded swamp beast of yore."

"Okay first of all you can either talk or have a concussion, you're not allowed to do both and second, what is it with you and reptiles?" snapped Crash.

Buck opened his mouth to respond but the possum quickly jabbed him softly in the belly and reaffirmed his earlier statement, "One or the other." At this the weasel merely gave a small smile but remained otherwise silent.

"Hey, if you don't mind me asking," Sarah began after a few minutes of relative silence had passed. "If I lifted up your eyelid right now do you think I'd be able to see your brain?"

Out of the corner of her eye Sarah was sure she saw Crash going in for another poke as Buck seemed to open his mouth to comment, but she was quickly distracted by a new and much more welcome sound.

"I thought I smelled a swamp monster," Mikey called as he and Diego walked into view from beyond the ever present veil of fog. "Crikey what happened to you fella's, get caught in a mudslide or somethin'?"

With that little comment Sarah was now thoroughly reminded of the fact that she, Crash and Buck were pretty well slathered from head to foot in fetid swamp mush and worse still was the thought that there was going to be no way to clean it off until they managed to climb up the far wall, and now she remembered they all still had a massive canyon to climb.

Eddie was going to pay dearly for this.

"Geez Bucko you look like a limp noodle," Mikey remarked, as Crash proceeded to guide the muddy and injured weasel over to Diego who for once appeared more than happy to take on a passenger without argument.

"Much appreciated Wet-tail," Buck replied sarcastically. "And no thanks tiger. Not while I can still walk on me' own two feet."

"Can you?" Diego asked, and the weasel immediately took his arm off Crash's shoulder straightened himself up to which the tiger responded with a sigh and smile, "Whatever you say."

"He fell for a double bluff tripwire thing, and got buried by a hundred pounds of deadwood. Oh and we got attacked by giant spider," said Sarah.

"Four broken toes, a concussion and some nasty bruises," Crash added as he walked over to Sarah and made a grab at the knife which she was all too willing to let him take. "I don't think he's gonna die but damn that's gonna hurt in the morning."

"What the spider didn't do anythin'?" Mikey asked.

"Didn't even try. One little scratch and the big pansy ran straight back where it came from like a frightened cockroach," Buck answered.

"And who did that?" Diego asked, suddenly curious.

"I did," Crash piped up eagerly. "Buck threw me his knife and told me to go for its eyes, but, well, I didn't know where those were so I just climbed up onto its back and stuck the knife into the big round bit at the back."

Diego looked to Buck for confirmation which he gave in the form of a proud nod.

"That's pretty brave for a possum," he remarked. "What happened to spineless, lily livered cowards?"

"Yeah you probably shouldn't tell Ellie about that," Crash answered sheepishly. "Besides, Sarah had that part kind of covered anyway."

"Hey I was trying to dig Buck out of that trap before the spider turned him into lunchmeat," Sarah pointed out angrily.

"Funny, from where I was standing it looked more like you were blubbering for your mommy," said Crash, to which Sarah retorted with a swift punch to the shoulder.

"What, neither of you even tried to run away?" Diego asked. "What about playing dead?"

With Crash busy growling while rubbing his now very sore arm and throwing angry looks in Sarah's direction she wound up being the one to answer.

"Where would we run? This whole place is a giant death-trap and Buck's the only one who knows how to get us out of here so if we didn't save him we'd be just as good as dead anyway."

"I can't believe it," the tiger mused with a smile. "You possums actually did something genuinely smart."

"Don't get used to it," Crash grumbled.

Sarah looked to Mikey in expectation of some further comment but at the moment the glider appeared far more concerned with giving his injured friend a needlessly scrupulous thrice over. Something which seemed kind of pointless considering all the mud, and from the disgruntled look on his face Buck didn't seem to understand the point in it either.

"Since everyone's here and accounted for now, I guess we should get going," said Diego. "We should only have about half a mile to go so as long as you possums don't take any more unexpected detours we should be able to get there in about twenty minutes or so."

"Hey it wasn't a detour we only fell back a bit," Crash pointed out indignantly. "How the heck do you know where we're going anyway?"

"I don't know exactly," Diego replied. "But as long as we keep going in straight line the cliff wall should be straight ahead."

As it turned out, almost half an hour later, the tiger's estimate of twenty minutes proved to be far more optimistic than the reality. In truth he could hardly have been expected to foresee having to cross a small but surprisingly deep river of thick, muddy water which, being well over the other members' heads, necessitated two trips back and forth to carry the rest of the group across. By the time everyone was safely on the opposite bank Diego was pretty worn out and just like Buck, Crash and Sarah, was completely slathered in mud.

By now Mikey was the only member of the group who didn't look and smell like a dung pile thanks to his being able to find a sufficiently tall tree trunk from where he was able to glide over to the other side. Diego was quick to point out that this ability had so far done very little to help anyone but the glider himself to which Mikey himself made absolutely no effort to deny.

Despite how tired they all were and Diego's injured shoulder giving him a significant amount of grief he continued to insist the group keep on moving. Buck was also in pretty bad shape but even though both Mikey and Crash offered to help him the rest of the way he flatly refused both times and continued to limp along next to the tiger at the head of the group. If she didn't know any better Sarah could have sworn those two were partaking in some kind of silent competition of endurance, which really wasn't helping anyone but from what she could tell between Buck being at least ten sticks short of bundle and Diego's prideful nature, short of dropping dead neither was going to stop. Were all carnivores were this stubborn?

"I dunno probably," Crash replied as she quietly related her thoughts to him. "I mean look at that hawk Eddie got friendly with. She's so hung up on that whole honour thing she'd probably get herself killed if she thought it would help him. Wish he'd told me about that before, it would have been awesome to have hawk helping us out."

"What about those panthers? Buck said they cheated and made Rudy run onto a tree instead of actually fighting him?"

"Sure, if you believe 'em. If you ask me that pile of bones looked way too small to be Rudy. I mean he was one huge dinosaur and tough too. Sure he wasn't too bright, but if he can fall down a great big chasm and come back out of it in one piece, what's a tree gonna do to him?"

Sarah's heart suddenly began to race and she looked at Crash with a mixture of confusion and fear. Surprisingly the possum merely began to laugh.

"Don't worry that was miles away from this place, and besides it's been almost three years since then. If Rudy's still alive he'd have found a way out ages ago, but boy if you could have seen your face."

Sarah laughed with relief. "You're worse than Eddie!"

"In what way?" Crash asked slyly, evoking yet another hearty laugh from her.

"Oh every single way."

"Aw bummer, do I get do over?"

"Is that your way hitting on me now?" Sarah asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Kinda," Crash answered impishly.

"You cannot be serious."

"Hey, think about it. You're covered in mud, I'm covered in mud, your Eddie's girlfriend and I'm his twin brother, we've got so much common."

"And it's totally not happening."

"Oh come on, we even fought a giant spider together," he replied eagerly. "If that's not an awesome first date I don't know what is."

"That's your idea of a great first date?"

"Well it was scary and dirty and someone got hurt. What more could you want?"

Sarah couldn't help laughing again. "Never thought you were that cynical."

"Hey it's not cynical if it's the truth."

"Geez Ellie was right, you really are the evil one."

"You don't know the half of it, but I'm willing to show you a thing or two if you'll let me," Crash said.

The wry little smile with which he'd said that all but killed any pretension to seriousness his little antic may have had, but despite the fact that he was obviously joking Sarah still couldn't help herself, "Oh like what?"

"The bunions on his left foot probably!" Mikey suddenly yelled back, causing both Sarah and Crash to jump with surprise.

"Shut it ya' ravin' ninny!" Buck cried angrily. "Let 'em get to the good bit first!"

Suddenly Sarah's face began to grow warm with embarrassment as the two mammals all stared straight at her and Crash, with the goofy smiles of eagerness. Fortunately it appeared Diego hadn't been listening, apparently having only just noticed that the others had stopped.

"Keep goin', don't mind us," the weasel continued.

"You know suddenly I don't really feel like it," she replied sheepishly, and the two mammals immediately groaned with disappointment.

"Nice goin' wet tail!" Buck grumbled to Mikey as the group continued with the two mammals now chuckling inanely and murmuring to one another about things Sarah could guess with absolute certainty weren't the pinnacle of morality.

Admittedly she could have tried explaining that it was all actually a rather obvious put-on, but right now that didn't look like it was going to change how embarrassing the situation was and would probably do little more that affirm its legitimacy in their twisted little minds. Fortunately, at least it seemed to have set the topic of conversation for the remaining ten minutes of dreary trudging before the entire group finally found themselves staring directly toward a great rock face not unlike the one which they had previously scaled down into this mud-bucket. An almost simultaneous dismayed groan came from the entire group as their eyes followed the steep incline of heavily pitted stone slowly fading into the fog just a few feet above them. The heaviest feeling which rapidly consumed every one of their minds being the agony of knowing that they were going to have to climb it, and this time it would be against the pull of gravity.

"Okay everyone," Sarah heard Buck finally struggle out between numerous laboured breaths. "I think we'll make camp 'ere."

* * *

**I don't know why but the idea of Buck being without his eye-patch has enthralled me greatly from the moment I began writing Chapter 1, hence it's loss during the brief arachnid encounter. I'm very, very sorry for pulling out the old giant spider cliché but the moment I saw that giant butterfly in Dawn of the Dinosaurs all I could think was, ' holy hell that place must have some bloody big spiders!' (Massive arachnophobe speaking here.)**

**When you finally put the reviewing pants on please be so kind as to point out any grammatical and/or spelling mistakes you spot. They're such a pain and are incredibly embarrassing when I spot them a week or two down the track. Never be afraid to criticise as long as it is justified! (Huh, the dissimilitude in those last two sentences almost sounds like a cheap magazine horoscope.)**


	12. Two Out Of Three Aint Great

**Yep it's another short one, took me long enough I know but I've also been going back and doing a bit of tidying up with the previous chapters, (and in some cases major maintenance). Feel free to go back and take a peak at what's been going on and if you don't like what I've done please don't hesitate to PM me. **

**Also whether it's noticeable or not I still think it's worth mentioning that my brother never got around to editing this on account of him being a lazy, do nothing, A-hole. (Yes I am quite bitter about it how could you tell?) Still it's probably a good chance for me to see how my own proofreading holds up, for all the good that does. Don't be afraid to tell me if any sentences read a little awkwardly though. **

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Chapter 12  
Two Out of Three Aint Great

With just the smallest sliver of early morning sun now beginning to show itself from behind the horizon to hail the coming of what looked to be a warm, sunny morning Eddie lay in a bored trance as he pretended to be scanning the surrounding snowfields for any sign of danger. After all these years it actually felt kind of weird to be looking forward to sleeping the whole day through, but now being the only remaining animal with decent night vision he'd been given the official post of night-watch. So for him it was back to the old nocturnal sleeping pattern he thought he'd long ago abandoned.

Normally by now he would have taken it upon himself to wake up the others but today he'd decided to stay up just a few extra hours in order to get a word in with Aldora. Although a vicious hiding from Ellie was practically guaranteed, he truly felt the risk was warranted by the questions he had burning in his mind. Not the least of these being why someone he'd always remembered so fondly would have been so callous in her disregard for the people he cared about.

"Hey Aldora," he greeted a few minutes later as she made a landing in the snow a few feet away upon returning from her morning hunt.

"Why are they still asleep?" the hawk asked irritably with a meaningful nod toward the other animals.

"I'm letting them sleep in a bit so I can ask you something."

"Did it ever occur to you that every minute we delay only brings us one more minute closer to the eruption and our certain death if we are not able to reach safety by that time?" Aldora remarked. "I hope that whatever you have to ask bears importance enough to warrant such a risk."

"Well, um, I know it's kinda weird to ask but when Diego, Crash and Sarah fell down the hole and you said what you said, were you really saying that you didn't care or were you just-just…" Eddie stammered to a halt as he abruptly realised he couldn't actually think of any other reason for her to have been so callous.

"That is all you have to say?" the hawk asked. "Perhaps I should add that it is often best to have one coherent sentence in mind before you speak, lest you waste precious time floundering for words and demonstrating your frighteningly limited vocabulary."

"I'm sorry I just…"

"However, for you I am willing to make one small concession." Aldora continued with just the smallest hint of a smile. "Honestly Eddie you really do astound me. Now please understand that I mean no offense in saying this but of all the animals in this heard I thought your kind to be the least concerned with the matter of death, and yet here I find you the most troubled by our recent misfortune. To the point of endangering the lives of all who remain no less."

"What do you mean?" Eddie asked.

"Well to be quite frank I did not think that _you_ would care," she answered. "The sun still rises, the trees still grow, the snow still falls, the world continues as it always has and so should you along with it. There is no point in burying yourself in guilt and sorrow over something you cannot predict and cannot control. I always presumed prey animals such as yourself to be far better aware of this fact than any of those that claim a higher place in the natural order."

"Well I guess that's actually kinda true. When my cousin Wilton got grabbed by a hawk we were all a little surprised but it's hard to care too much about it when the same thing happens every other day."

"Then why does this recent incident trouble you so?" Aldora asked.

"I dunno, maybe it's just that all the other possums grew up in great big litters but right from the start it was just me, Crash and Ellie. We've always been together, and I guess that's the way I always thought it'd stay. Without Crash it just feels like I'm missing something, _we're _missing something, and I don't care what they say about two out of three that feeling never goes away no matter what I do."

"Life does not bend to accommodate your whims no matter how much you wish it to." The hawk replied somewhat sternly. "You may have lost your brother, your lady friend and the tiger but you still have your sister don't you? Not to mention your brother in law, your niece and your ungainly green friend. I accept that you may feel grief for the departed but isn't it just as important for you to do whatever is in your power to keep hold of what you still have?"

"I guess bu…"

"Agreed then? Good. Now wake the others and get to sleep, we've lingered here far too long and the most difficult leg of our journey is approaching. If you have anything else that you wish to discuss with me you may do so once we have reached our next rest."

Eddie furrowed his brow in frustration as the hawk took off into the sky. How was he supposed to ask her anything when she'd probably be asleep by the time he woke up and in no mood to be awoken without a damn good reason?

He let out a dejected sigh as he walked back to the others; it certainly seemed Aldora had her mind made up about Diego, Crash and Sarah. Fortunately her views weren't shared among by the other herd members who had kept up a constant hope of meeting their comrades on the far side of the mountains, or at worst maybe a few days after the eruption. Probably because, unlike Aldora, they'd all been down there before and although they knew the many dangers the underground presented, they also knew there was still one thing they could count on.

Sure enough upon waking the others and their realising just how late he'd allowed them to sleep in the possum received serious verbal walloping from both of his furious relatives, not a syllable of which actually penetrated his sleep addled brain. All he cared about at that moment was curling up between his sister's shoulders to catch some much needed shut-eye as soon as she'd calmed down, cursing that fact that for all his lost sleep the only thing he'd managed to get out of Aldora was a stern lecture on pragmatism.

When next he woke up he was surprised to see that it was snowing lightly with the sun now hidden behind a thick veil of navy-blue cloud. This realisation caused Eddie to groan. It was a classic snowstorm in the making, and a pretty nasty looking one at that. Quite a pain considering he'd been hoping the weather would remain calm at least until they made it across the mountains.

Ellie and Sid seemed to be having quite an avid albeit nervous sounding exchange in rushed urgent voices nearby. Naturally this made Eddie quite anxious himself and he wasted no time in asking sister what was happening.

"I'm not sure," Ellie replied. "That hawk just came back from taking a look ahead and said something to Manny, and he then he told us to wait here while they checked it out."

"You think something's happened?" asked Sid. "Like an earthquake caused a landslide or something?"

"There haven't been any earthquakes in three days," said Ellie. "If one happened now I'm pretty sure we'd notice it."

"Why didn't they want us tagging along?" asked Eddie. "I hate it when stuff's happening and I'm not around to see it."

"Well if you wanna see what's goin' on be my guest," his sister answered. "It's probably pretty dangerous though, Aldora seemed pretty spooked when she came back."

"You don't think there's been an avalanche do you?" Sid asked.

"I hope not," said Ellie. "If it is we're gonna have a serious problem getting over those mountains."

"Aw I hope we don't have to go back and around," the sloth whined. "We've been walking almost non-stop for three days, my feet are killing me. I dunno how you mammoths do it."

"A million years of evolution and a lot of practice," the mammoth replied.

"Mommy where's daddy?" a small voice suddenly asked and Eddie realised that his niece Peaches had been quietly napping between her mother's forelegs this whole time and evidently hadn't noticed her father leaving.

"Oh Peaches don't worry, daddy's just gone to talk with the birdie for a while," Ellie replied.

Eddie couldn't help noticing a distinctive chill shoot through his body as he recalled a frighteningly similar phrase from his own childhood. In retrospect it actually seemed a million times creepier once he'd realised the truth behind it.

"Geez, they've been gone for a while," Sid pointed out after several minutes had passed in relative silence and the first rumbles of thunder had begun in the distance. "Maybe one of us should go check if they're alright."

"I'm not goin' anywhere," said Ellie. "You know the moment we leave the others are gonna come back and find us gone, then the storm's gonna hit, we'll all get lost and wind up on some wild goose chase looking for one another until that volcano blows."

"Love the positive vibes there sis," said Eddie.

"Well if you've got a good nose you could just follow their scent couldn't you?" Sid suggested.

"I'm a mammoth not dog," Ellie exclaimed irritably.

"What about Eddie?" asked the sloth, and the possum immediately sent a furious glare in his direction.

"Actually that might be alright. It's not like anything big enough to hurt Manny's gonna notice something as small as possum poking around," said Ellie. "Though I guess you should be careful all the same."

"And when exactly did I agree to all this?" he asked.

"Do you want to do it?"

"No," he answered plainly. "But you're gonna make me do it anyway."

"You know it," Came his sister's reply.

Leaping from Ellie's shoulder into the snow, Eddie grumbled some extremely unsavoury language as he scurried over to where Manny's footprints lead away from the group and faded into the snowfall.

"If it looks like the storm's gonna hit just come right back," he heard his sister call to him as he sprinted away.

Eddie scoffed at that. Of course he'd hurry back he wasn't stupid. A big fat mammoth like Manny would be fine on their own but if a possum like him got caught in a storm without any shelter he'd probably freeze to death.

A few minutes of bounding across the snow brought him within sight of a large, quite rotund silhouette. However as he made his way over to it he quickly realised that the great dark figure wasn't Manny at all but a shockingly large gouge in the side of a small hill where the snow and topsoil had been torn up and strewn across the landscape. As if that wasn't strange enough with just a single sniff of the air his nostrils were immediately assaulted with the odour of fresh blood.

Naturally Eddie resolved to proceed with extreme caution as he approached; hoping with all his heart that what he smelled had nothing to do with Manny's delay in returning to the group. Unfortunately what he found once he got closer told a distinctly different story.

From what he could tell all the torn up snow and dirt were a pretty clear sign of a struggle involving something very large, definitely of around Manny's size, and the copious volume of blood spattered across the snow told him that it couldn't have gone too well. The fact that Manny's big rounded mammoth footprints appeared to end here, left little doubt in the possums mind.

"What am I gonna tell Ellie," he thought aloud to himself as he surveyed the scene in dismay.

Turning around Eddie immediately set off as fast as he could back to where Ellie, Sid and Peaches were waiting patiently. Of course this didn't last for long and their faces quickly changed to looks of shock as the hysterical possum sprinted toward them to deliver the second piece of horrible news in three days.

"Do you think that hawk had anything to do with it?" Ellie asked, as the trio hurried to the scene with Eddie scurrying ahead to lead them.

"No way," he called back breathlessly. "I know she seems a little chilly sometimes but she's got a reason for that, and it's also a good reason why she'd never really mean to hurt any of us."

"You say that but the way I see it she's just a strange hawk who showed up one day and told us we're all gonna die in fire if we don't follow her," his sister replied. "At last count we've already lost three people on this stupid trip and she never even ruffled a feather about it, so please forgive me if I'm findin' it just a little hard to trust her right now."

"C'mon guys we can't start pointing claws already," said Sid. "We've gotta find out if Manny's okay first."

When the group finally reached the tattered hillside both Sid and Ellie gave a shocked gasp at the sight.

"Manny!" Ellie exclaimed, before quickly wrapping her trunk around Peaches' eyes in a vain effort to shield her daughter.

"No way," Sid muttered quietly in obvious disbelief.

Eddie could see that they both had tears beginning to well up in their eyes as they looked on and the grief finally began to hit home. Needless to say he couldn't help feeling at least a little ashamed that the same wasn't happening to him.

"What's on the other side?" Ellie asked, looking pointedly towards a trench-like trail where something had obviously been dragged through the snow to the other side of the hill.

"I dunno, I didn't look," Eddie answered.

"I don't think I wanna know," said Sid, as he tried in vain to gulp back tears.

"What are you doing here?" A new but familiar voice suddenly joined the conversation. "I thought Manfred told you all to wait until we returned. Why on earth did you feel the need to contravene his instructions?"

"Aldora!' both Eddie and Ellie exclaimed in unison as the hawk swooped in for hard landing on the side of the hill.

"Indeed," she replied, and from her tone of voice she certainly seemed quite agitated. "Your mate is quite unruly when he is worried; no manner of comfort could calm that mammoth right now."

"Manny's alright?" Ellie exclaimed with a great deal of relief.

"For now," the hawk replied. "But if we don't return soon he is liable to suffer a heart attack."

The female mammoth let out a hearty laugh. "That's my Manny."

"Why'd you guys take so long, we were really worried," said Sid.

"And that was reason enough for you all to go traipsing off on your own without any knowledge of why that was?" Aldora asked.

"Not really, they sent me ahead first," Eddie replied, before quickly adding, "But it wasn't my idea."

To be honest it was quite amusing to watch how the hawk's neck feathers seemed to puff up with fury at that. Actually she seemed far too angry for words now, quite unusual for someone who seemed perpetually ready to spill a full length public address whenever she opened her beak.

"I guess we'd better go back now," Ellie suggested, as she turned around and began to plod away with Peaches at her heels.

Apparently possessing a much stronger curiosity than his sister Eddie immediately headed straight toward the bloody trail and up the hill to see what exactly was on the other side. However just as he was about to clear the apex a large white blur suddenly came down into the snow just in front of him with a soft thud causing him to yelp in fright as he tripped and fell flat on his face.

"What in heaven's name are you doing now Eddie?" Aldora asked with great aggravation as she blocked his way with her body.

"I just wanna see what's on the other side," the possum answered innocently as a particularly loud thunder clap sounded in the sky above. "It's no biggie."

"No you're not," the hawk replied. "You're going to turn around and follow your sister."

Eddie couldn't help raising an eyebrow. "Why should I listen to you, you're not my mom, and it's not like you care anyway."

The hawk's eyes seemed to widen as her frown quickly transformed into livid glare.

"I have had up to here with your antics, and I will have no more of it. You will do what I say, when I say it and there will be no argument!" She suddenly yelled with frightening ire. "Turn around and go! Now!"

Even though he knew it was an incredibly foolish thing to do, Eddie had to admit that _he_ had just about had it up to here with _her_ intolerably cold, businesslike manner. Always barking orders at them while showing all the emotional range of a pebble, and just expecting them to obey her without question like good little lemmings. This certainly wasn't the hawk he remembered and he'd be damned if he was going to follow the whims of this mean-spirited imposter any longer. Now was the time to make a stand.

"Make me," he replied with a mischievous sneer.

At first it definitely looked like Aldora was just about prepared to murder him but after a few seconds, and much to his surprise, the hawk's expression suddenly softened to an almost friendly smile.

"If you insist," she said, spreading her wings before she took off into the air and out of sight.

At first Eddie was very cautious as he continued his climb over the hill but eventually began to chuckle in disbelief as the hawk failed to come back into view. So she had actually gone. That was a clear win for him and a sizeable achievement for a prey animal against a top predator. To be honest he actually felt pretty proud of himself.

However all this was forgotten in a moment when at the top of the hill his eyes fell upon the incredibly bizarre sight on the other side. Less than a hundred feet from the base of the hill he could see a gaping hole in the ice where it seemed something very large and possibly very desperate had smashed its way upward onto the surface. His mind was immediately cast back to the memory of those strange lizard-bird things he, Sarah and Crash had found in that cave all those weeks ago.

As he drew closer he was surprised to see that the trench didn't actually lead back down into the hole but continued passed it in the direction of the mountains. The very same mountains the herd were planning on climbing. Looking closer he also realised that the footprints leading out and past the cave were of the same colossal three-toed variety to which he had become pretty well accustomed during the herd's brief time in the underground.

"Rudey!" he exclaimed as his eyes widened in fear as the realisation hit home.

Before he could do anymore to react however he suddenly found himself forced flat into the snow with a thump as something very fast and very painful came crashing down onto him from above.

Now with a sore chest from being winded by the impact and a sharp stabbing pain across his entire back he was only able to gasp for air and watch dizzily as the landscape beneath him began to speed past so fast it seemed nothing more than white blur. Of course he was terrified but with the air rushing past him with such incredible force he was barely able to breathe let alone cry out for help. Thankfully though, the whole experience lasted only mere seconds and was abruptly concluded by a painful fall and tumble through the snow which by the end of it left him feeling and looking like an avalanche victim.

"I don't appreciate cheek," Came Aldora's voice in a distinctly unamused tone.

Normally Eddie would have loved to provide some kind of sarcastic response but right now he was having a hard enough time trying to ascertain whether or not all his limbs were still attached.

"Uh, Aldora I know I wasn't exactly specific about it but I was kinda hoping you would bring Eddie back alive," said the much more welcome voice of his sister, Ellie.

"Oh believe me he is, although perhaps feeling fairly sorry for himself right now," the hawk replied.

"Did you have to be so rough?" Eddie exclaimed as he finally managed so sit up on his haunches and gently dab at his stinging back to find that he was indeed bleeding. "Those nasty claws of yours actually stabbed me!"

"Well forgive me but you aren't quite as small nor as light as you once were, I could hardly have grasped you entire body in one talon," said Aldora. "Besides I can assure you any actual predator would have shown considerably less care."

"You could've asked, I was about to leave anyway," said Eddie. "Why'd you have to swoop me?"

"You were being uncooperative," the hawk answered.

"You were being a bi-" Eddie began before stopping himself just short of swearing in front of Peaches again.

"Did you find anything good on the other side of the hill?" asked Ellie.

"Good? I found a massive hole in the ground with…" once again the possum was cut short but this time by a particularly bright flash of lightning as it lit up the entire sky preceding a truly deafening clap of thunder.

He noticed Peaches hurriedly retreat beneath her mother's body as a freezing combination of snow and sleet began to pour down onto the herd driven by a sudden howling gust of wind. From the looks of things his discovery was probably going to have to wait.

"Perfect timing!" he heard Manny exclaim loudly over the sudden din. "We're in the middle of nowhere here; there's no cover anywhere."

"Thanks for that captain obvious," said Ellie. "C'mon guys huddle up. It looks like we're just gonna have to wait it out together, and I don't wanna hear any complaining about personal space or anything."

Needless to say Eddie didn't have to be told twice before he quickly scampered over to his sister as the entire herd bunched together into one big multicoloured mound of fur, and he managed to find a cosy nook huddled up next his niece in the warm embrace of his sister's trunk. With both Ellie and Manny lying down in the snow with their backs to the storm the middle of the huddle was fairly well protected and surprisingly Manny was perfectly happy to let Sid sit in there alongside Aldora without a single word of complaint.

It was actually kind of nice to see the herd together like this. Even if four of their number were missing it was comforting to know that no matter what, when push came to shove they could all still count on each other. However bearing that in mind, Eddie still doubted he and Aldora were likely to be on good terms again anytime soon. At the very least until she apologised for the biting pain he now had to deal with thanks to her talons, despite which he was still thankfully able to nod off to sleep before anyone started sharing the usual round of lame camping jokes.

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**Originally the scene at the beginning was supposed to be a lot more emotional but given the context of the previous above ground chapter and what I was trying to do with Aldora it didn't really make any sense that way, and it slowed the whole chapter down to a crawl anyway. Doubtless they'll get their little moment later but for now DINOSAURS!**

**Looking forward to the reviews as always and you know what just say whatever you want. Criticism or mindless praise I don't care, I just like reading them to be honest.**


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